This just in from the campaign trail: more proof that Republicans "just don't get it" about the concerns of ordinary Americans over health care.

Mike Huckabee is getting a lot of media attention these days because of his dramatic rise in the Iowa polls. But I was personally stunned last night to see him say the following (from PBS' "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer"):

If you think that Medicare is expensive now, wait until 10,000 aging hippies a day find out they can get free drugs. Then, it's really going to get expensive in a hurry.

To be fair, he was playing the line for a laugh from his assumably-Republican audience. The lead-in to the video clip even started out: "Huckabee's ease in front of a crowd and use of humor may have played a hand in his rise in Iowa...." And to be scrupulously fair, the line did get a decent laugh from the crowd.

But I think it points out in stark contrast the difference in attitude between Republicans and Democrats over the health care issue. And since this attitude is going to prove disastrous for Republicans next year in the elections, Democrats should be cheering them on when they're putting their foot in their mouth in this fashion. And pointing it out to the voters every chance they can get.

In the first place, Huckabee is obviously ignoring the fact that the Medicare prescription drug bill (flawed though it is) was passed by a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and signed into law by a Republican President. While seniors who are on the plan have had to face a Byzantine array of rules, regulations and confusing choices; at the end of the day most of them would agree that it is a good thing -- and certainly better than no plan at all. Even Republican senior citizens.

Now, Huckabee knows he's on safe ground with his audience. The seniors listening (or the people listening who have parents or other relatives on the plan) are simply not going to think of themselves as "hippies" who want some "free drugs." So it's like a Democrat making a joke about oil company CEOs -- probably a good bet that there aren't any in the audience.

But it cuts to why this is a losing issue for Republicans. They're going to be hoist on their own ideology on this one. Because a true-blue small-government conservative believes that anything government touches becomes inherently evil, corrupted, inefficient, or expensive. Or some combination of these bad choices. So current Republican thinking on health care amounts to the following: "Government can't be involved, it's got to be private. We don't want to become, God forbid (shudder), Sweden or anything. Everybody who has private insurance is much happier with it than they'd be with government health care. We just have to find a way to force all those deadbeats who have no insurance to start paying for it. Then everything'll be fine."

Am I overstating their case? Perhaps, but I really don't think so. The big scare-word is always socialism which is much weaker than the original scare-word of communism, but it'll have to do for now. Because most Americans have no concept of what health care is like for the rest of the Western world, many of them accept this as a terrifying thing. But I have a feeling it's just not going to be potent enough.

Because Americans, even Republican-Americans, have already decided that something is drastically wrong with the way health care works in this country. There are just so many ways that our health care system is dysfunctional that it's impossible to even list them all here. But almost every family in America (by now) has had to get through some medical emergency with a member of their own clan. So everybody can see that things need to change somehow.

To be honest, Democrats aren't all that much better on the subject. Each of the top three Democratic presidential candidates has proposed some way of marginally making the system better. These, even if enacted, would probably wind up being akin to slapping a band aid on a severed limb. None of them is truly "universal health care," and the candidates all know it, even if they won't admit it in public.

But here's the difference: at least the Democrats are admitting something's wrong. Voters are going to respond to that. Even Republican voters who laugh at jokes about "hippies" getting "free drugs" running up the cost of Medicare may, eventually (on the icy car ride back to Smallville, Iowa), realize that free drugs for hippies isn't exactly the biggest problem health care faces right now. And maybe they'll think about Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, and come to the conclusion that "ignoring a crisis and wishing it will go away" might not be the best response to a problem.

Huckabee's joke, and the Republicans' attitude towards health care in general, are going to become one of the starkest differences between whoever ultimately becomes the Republican and Democratic nominees for president. Democrats need to hammer this home every chance they can get. And it won't be just aging hippies who respond to this message:

"At least Democrats have a plan to fix health care. Republican's don't. They think everything's fine. If you want a change, vote Democratic. If you want the status quo on health care, vote Republican. It's that simple."

-- Chris Weigant