Government has proven so adept at managing health care that it really makes sense to force the sickest among us into the tender mercies of government.

They recommend taking this money from the post-2014 ObamaCare budget. However, they do not propose an alternative to post-2014 ObamaCare, other than (accurately) traducing it as a “massive transformation” of American health care with significant negative consequences. Mr. Miller has previously proposed alternative reforms (in a February publication co-written with Joseph Antos), and Mr. Capretta is second-to-none in his analyses of ObamaCare’s disastrous fiscal consequences, which he has communicated in other fora. Their current focus on high-risk pools appears to set aside their previous lines of inquiry, at least for the time being.

It is difficult to understand how the outcome they desire for high-risk pools corresponds with their larger vision of alternative reform, expressed elsewhere. If the high-risk pools remain poorly funded, and fail, they will become yet another mark against ObamaCare. If Congress raids the post-2014 budget to fund the high-risk pools, as Miller and Capretta advise, high-risk pools might “succeed.” ObamaCare will become even more solidly locked in, and the chances for “reforming the reform” even dimmer.

Furthermore, as the clock ticks towards 2014, Congress will have to find new sources of revenue to replace the money that is currently earmarked for ObamaCare’s exchanges, but already spent on high-risk pools, per Miller & Capretta.

Steve