Peter Suderman, an editor at Reason Magazine, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last week imagining what a Republican health-care plan might look like if Republicans ever got serious about designing one.

Reason defines itself as a Libertarian magazine, so its prescriptions are unlikely to match up well with the goal of universal coverage advocated by many on the left. But Suderman did a good job of describing the cognitive dissonance that makes it almost impossible for Republicans to do anything productive on the subject.

Despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office projects both their House and Senate plans would reduce the number of Americans with health insurance by something in excess of 20 million, moving the total number of uninsured back toward 50 million, or about where it was before the Affordable Care Act, Republican rhetoric inexplicably criticizes the ACA for leaving too many people uninsured. This looks like nothing more than cynical political pandering, which doesn’t help the GOP’s credibility with people who have even a glimmer of understanding of health-care policy.

Read more at The Boulder Daily Camera.