I think that this commentary by Bruce Bartlett rings true:

In my opinion, conservative activists, who seem to believe that the louder they shout the more correct their beliefs must be, are less angry about Obama's policies than they are about having lost the White House in 2008. They are primarily Republican Party hacks trying to overturn the election results, not representatives of a true grassroots revolt against liberal policies.

I am not seeing any coherent policy response to the White House or the Democratic Congress. The incoherence is probably best epitomized by Sarah Palin and her public appearances. I should be in the constituency of the American Republican Party; however I consider them unfit to govern and I have seen nothing to make me change that view.

I dislike that the public option has been dropped from the Obama health care policies. Without an employer subsidizing a health care plan it is prohibitively expensive. Because I am married I have the choice of two plans, the one my wife's job offers and the company I am with. But it means every time we change jobs we have to re-asses our health needs and our health care providers. A public option would remove that complexity from it and at least give us a third choice that is not prohibitive.

I doubt forcing people to have insurance coverage to make sure the pool is complete for risk purposes will work. It is hard in a society based on liberty to get people to do what they do not want to do unless it becomes ingrained in the culture. The US unfortunately has a culture of a large percentage not having health care and trying to get by without it usually for reasons of it being too expensive. I doubt that will change unless you sign people up by birth onto a public plan and provide preventative health care.

I don't have an issue with health care being provided by government. I think it is one of those areas where moral expectations mean full coverage for all individuals requires a communal effort and organization and currently that means a central government being involved. I also believe that the private market should take part in health care but there are obvious inefficiencies of a pure private market and that leaves no other mechanism that government to become involved to ensure complete coverage for all citizens.