Cognitive Dissonance in the Republican Party

How can people change their views on strongly held beliefs?  One theory in social – psychology which bears on this question is called “cognitive dissonance”.  According to this well accepted theory, if a person can be induced to voluntarily take a public position counter to their beliefs then they will revise their beliefs.  The dissonance created between the belief and behavior must be resolved so that the person can present him or herself as a rational being.  Since the behavior has already occurred, only the belief can change to achieve consistency between cognition and behavior.  The belief is not completely changed, of course, but revised just enough to justify the public behavior.  Social psychologists have demonstrated this phenomenon in countless experiments in which subjects are asked about their beliefs, then paid to publicly portray a position counter to their beliefs and asked again about their beliefs.  These studies show that people typically revise their beliefs in the direction of their behavior.   

Among Republicans, one strongly held belief is that government regulation of business is counterproductive.  Yet, legislation to do exactly that is currently being advanced by Republican controlled State Legislatures to control the spiraling cost of pharmaceutical drugs.  The legislation would require pharmaceutical companies to provide extensive written documentation to State Legislatures whenever the price of a drug increases by more than a specified percent.    This seems like a good idea because everyone agrees that the costs of prescription drugs are too high.  But, how can Republicans justify a regulatory approach to the problem when they have long advocated for the removal of burdensome government regulations from virtually all other industries such as oil and gas exploration, steel, and car manufacturing, etc.?  Let’s take a deeper look from the perspective of political strategy.

First, don’t get me wrong:  I strongly believe that something needs to be done about the increasing cost of healthcare.  At the same time, keeping government interference off the backs of industry has always been a major tenant of the Republican party platform and the free-market economy it seeks to defend.  An approach to controlling drug costs that is more consistent with Republican ideology would have been to reduce government regulations and take steps to encourage competition in a free market healthcare economy.  From the perspective of Republican ideology, reduced regulations free up capital for innovation, and competition naturally drives down prices.  Why is it suddenly acceptable to Republicans to introduce new and onerous government regulations on this industry and no others? 

Passing legislation to control drug costs by government regulation sets the stage for cognitive dissonance in Republicans.  How will the Republican party resolve the dissonance created between their long-held beliefs against government regulation and their new public proposal to regulate drug price increases in the pharmaceutical industry.  What has induced them to take this position contrary to their beliefs?   

One likely answer lays in the fact that most Americans want something done about the high cost of healthcare.  Even Conservatives who oppose ObamaCare agree that big pharma, insurance companies, hospitals and HMO’s are all profiting on healthcare at the expense of the average citizen and want something done about it.   By seeking to repeal ObamaCare without offering a replacement solution, the Republican Party is at great risk in the next  election from the majority of Americans who want lower healthcare costs.  But, reforming healthcare more broadly is exceedingly complex, and not something that Republicans can directly address because it is an even larger threat to their ideology about government interference in business, not to mention their large corporate donors. 

Ultimately, this legislation gives Republicans a simple answer to the criticism that they have gutted ObamaCare without offering a replacement plan that provides relief for the high cost of healthcare.  The retail price of prescription medications is a tiny piece of a much larger puzzle, and one that the average voter can easily grasp. 

As one small piece of the overall problem of excessive healthcare costs, however, drug cost control legislation provides no government regulations to reform the cost structure of the larger healthcare industry.  Thus, it can be positioned as an isolated case of government regulation.  Further, this legislation is toothless.  It requires only that big pharma report large price increases.  It does not prevent or even slow drug price increases.  Thus, it has no impact on the corporate profits of big Republican donors beyond the time spent filing out the required documentation for a price increase.  This is even better for Republicans.  This legislation has the appearance of taking strong action without accomplishing anything of substance such as the cost of hospitalization, medical tests, surgery, insurance, or coverage for pre-existing conditions. 

Most importantly for Republicans, it gives them a nice sound-bite response to the inevitable criticism they will face in the next election over repealing much of ObamaCare without replacing it with another form of affordable healthcare.  They will be able to claim that they care about healthcare costs more than Democrats, and are doing something about it with this legislation.  The claim is disingenuous because the legislation has no enforcement provisions and is limited in scope, yet the tactic is very smart from the perspective of electoral politics.  When voting in the next election, we must remember that Republican led drug cost legislation is a distraction from their much bigger failure in healthcare reform.  Ultimately, the purpose of Republican led drug cost control legislation is to gain a political bargaining chip in the larger healthcare debate.

So, the inducement to take a position counter to their belief is a valuable political chip to be played in the next  election.  But, how will they justify the inconsistency between belief and behavior?  Will they follow Machiavelli and calculate that the short-term political gain is more important then their strongly-held ideology about free market principles – the ends justify the means?  Or, will they follow cognitive dissonance theory and revise their beliefs to say that government regulation of business is bad – except when it’s not – such as when the majority of voters believe that prices are out of control.  It will be interesting to see what spin is placed on this and how they seek to maintain the perception of a rational, logical, and consistent set of economic policy beliefs and their actual legislative behaviors.