In 2006, the Association of Trial Lawyers for America changed its name to the American Association for Justice.  Why?  Because most people hate trial lawyers--but everyone loves justice.

Of late, liberals have started categorizing themselves as 'progressives.'  For a long time, 'liberal' was something of a dirty word, associated with socialism and loose morals.  But everyone loves progress.

Recently, Republicans have engaged in a similarly disingenuous enterprise: promoting their own brand of "universal health care."  The Republican budget, unveiled last week, uses the phrase "universal access to affordable health care," seven times.  Astonished that the conservative party has seemingly co-opted one of the Democrats' favorite platforms?  Don't be.

In response to media inquiries, Sen. Bob Bennett (R) explained, "Republicans are coming to the understanding that their opposition to universal coverage is misplaced. . . . Let's understand that when we say we cover everybody . . . that is not a step toward a single-payer government-run system."

Essentially, the Republican goal is to promote universal access to health care through making health care "universally affordable" and creating tax incentives.  Presumably, this being the Republican party, we would make health care "universally affordable" through tort reform and tax breaks, but the plan is rather sketchy on the details.  The tax incentives would be used to allow people to purchase health insurance, or not, as they chose. 

However, as Christopher Beam of Slate.com points out, the Republican definition of "universal" is flawed.  First, people wouldn't be covered if they chose to use that tax money to pay off credit card bills or buy really expensive goldfish.  Second, no conservative so far has proposed forcing insurance companies to accept people with certain preexisting conditions.  So it's really not "universal" health care.

Why, then, would Republicans choose the word 'universal' to describe a health care plan that clearly is not universal?  Why not call it something more accurate, like "a freedom of choice plan"?  Non-lawyers would say that the Republican plan is "close enough" to being universal that such semantic quibbling really amounts to nothing.

But then, why not choose a name that is sufficiently differentiated from the Democrats' terminology?  If nothing else, the Republicans should wish to set themselves apart from the Democrats--particularly after having long criticized a "single payer" system as nothing more than socialism. 

This is nothing more than Republicans trying desperately to be Democrats, erroneously believing the polls that purport to show great public support for so-called "universal" health care.  Thus, our elected party leaders smear the tried-and-true Republican platform of tax breaks and tort reform with a name associated with Communism, abject failure, and nanny statism. 

We tried being Democrats for an entire election cycle in 2008, and what has that gotten us?  People don't want quasi-Democrats like McCain.  If they are going to vote for liberals, they will vote for the real thing--and they have.  The only way to take back Congress in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012 is to be true conservatives, and embrace our economic policies in substance and in name.