Over at the Washington Post, Ezra Klein gives us a preview of what awaits Republicans at the president’s televised summit. Klein’s post is titled, “The six Republican ideas already in the health-care reform bill,” which is funny for two reasons.

1. I read somewhere today that “Republican leaders” were still refusing to offer “any specific proposals.” Yet according to Klein, they’ve offered at least six specific ideas. Did Paul Krugman get booted from the JournoList?
2. The legislative provisions that Klein lists are not indicative of Republican ideas. They are Potemkin versions of Republican ideas, incorporated into a framework that is anathema to the Republican philosophy of government.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Eliminating the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits is a good idea, but the Democrats can’t really do it — it would anger organized labor, which benefits from the preferential arrangement. So the Democrats’ Potemkin version — an excise tax that would effectively cap the value of employer-provided plans — would exempt unions.

Allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines would reduce premiums, but it would weaken states’ power to regulate insurance companies. The Democrats’ Potemkin version — a provision allowing the formation of state compacts — is meaningless: Their bill would create a massive federal regulatory apparatus that would render state regulation obsolete!

Klein finally, angrily points out that the Democrats have dropped the “public option.” Great! But it doesn’t matter. Their vision of health-care reform remains completely alien to that of the GOP — and, apparently, to what most of the public wants.