Asked And Answered

Col. Mustard poses what he considers a difficult question:

What if Barack Obama were not President, and Democrats did not control Congress. Would liberals be so willing to give the federal government this sweeping power?

Yes. In fact, if the next Republican president wants to make policy even more “oppressive” and advocates a health care system closer to those in the world’s other liberal democracies — i.e. one that provides universal coverage for far less money with similar or better results — I’d be thrilled.

For the longer answer to this kindergarten pseudo-libertarianism, see Ezra:

…people do not “celebrate” the freedom to not be able to afford lifesaving medical care. They don’t want the freedom to weigh whether to pay rent or take their feverish child to the emergency room. They don’t like the freedom to lose their job and then be told by insurers that they’re ineligible for coverage because they were born with a heart arrhythmia.

As someone who grew up under the oppressive yoke of a single payer system, I know from experience that “free market” health care would, for all but plutocrats, represent a very substantial loss of freedom. The real freedom that comes from knowing that you won’t be bankrupted by illness, or that you can switch jobs or start a business or train for a new career without worrying about losing access to health care, is vastly more important than the meaningless “freedom” to live with (or die from) illness if you can’t obtain medical care. Under the new health care legislation, most Americans will be less free in ways that count than their counterparts in other liberal democracies, but more free than they would be under the status quo, let alone Saint Reagan’s dream of a world where the elderly and indigent died from preventable illnesses to keep marginal tax rates low.

Oh, right, we don’t have to look outside the country — I invite Republicans who believe that government-provided insurance is tyrannical to be consistent with their principles and make a case that citizens should throw off the oppressive chains of Medicare. Oddly, I heard very little of that from even the craziest House Republicans…