In this IBD editorial John Edwards takes a pounding for the “mandate madness” of his authoritarian health care plan.
An interesting book I’ve just finished and will be reviewing, Professor John Murray’s Origins of American Health Insurance, makes the point that a century ago “progressives” (now called “liberals”) sought to replace voluntary worker associations called sickness funds with government programs such as existed in Bismarck’s Germany. The efforts went nowhere because, Murray shows, the voluntary arrangements worked pretty well and many people — including union leaders such as Samuel Gompers — thought that mandatory, one-size fits all government policies would not serve workers as well.
Will Americans today fall for the socialist promises of better life through the nanny state that Americans of a century ago rejected? Let’s hope not.
