A very tough WSJ editorial today looking at RomneyCare, but it was the summary that really caught me:
For a potential President whose core argument is that he knows how to revive free market economic growth, this amounts to a fatal flaw. Presidents lead by offering a vision for the country rooted in certain principles, not by promising a technocracy that runs on “data.” Mr. Romney’s highest principle seems to be faith in his own expertise.
More immediately for his Republican candidacy, the debate over ObamaCare and the larger entitlement state may be the central question of the 2012 election. On that question, Mr. Romney is compromised and not credible. If he does not change his message, he might as well try to knock off Joe Biden and get on the Obama ticket.
If a series of studies somehow (unlikely) showed that high taxes and nationalization of business would produce a higher standard of living, would I be for those policies? I would not, because that sort of society would be a far more oppressive one where a person would not be free to pursue happiness as he or she saw it. While numbers should inform decisions, it’s not always about following the data wherever it takes you. Not at all. I remember talking with a libertarian econ professor who said he used to believe that his side “had the better studies.” As he got older, he became a bit less sure of that. But he also really didn’t care since at the core of cosmology was a belief in the value of freedom.
Talk about no factual argument given, just platitudes…
Tell us exactly how much money is going to pay exactly which commissars [or is it czars], which union kickbacks, which political favors, and which other graft. And be specific.
This is the usual spoon fed babble the ditto-bots get drummed into their little heads every day, two hours ever morning, and four hours every afternoon, followed by three hours of prime time, every single day.
So yes, let’s look at all the examples around the world, and compare them to America’s system. America treats healthcare as a risk, while the rest of the civilized word treats it as a cost. That’s why Americans pay twice as much for health services as the rest of the world, and get results that are no better.
There is no risk of getting sick. Disease does not care if people have health “insurance” or not. People get sick, they get care, and society pays the COST. Adding a layer of for-profit business to “manage the risk” is insanity.
And yet, Republicans are willing to spend whatever capital, political or otherwise, to protect this racket.