If you want to understand what is wrong with health care
policy among Progressives, Liberals, and the rest of the Left, you need go no
further than Paul
Krugman’s column last Friday in which he explains that you are too stupid
to purchase your own health care and you need a group of people in Washington
to make decisions for you. (My emphasis in bold)
We have to do something about health care costs, which means that we have to find a way to start
saying no. In particular, given continuing medical innovation, we
can’t maintain a system in which Medicare essentially pays for anything a doctor recommends.
Krugman then explains
We’re not talking about limits on what health care
you’re allowed to buy with your own (or your insurance company’s) money. We’re talking only about what will be paid for with taxpayers’ money. And the last time I looked at it, the Declaration of
Independence didn’t declare that we had the right to life, liberty, and the all-expenses-paid
pursuit of happiness.
And the point is that choices must be made; one way
or another, government spending on health care must be limited.
After reducing the health care debate to money, however, Krugman concludes
The idea that all this can be reduced to money … is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a
sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with
our society’s values.
When Krugman, President Obama, or Governor Perdue claims that market-based
approaches that put money in the hands of individuals will leave people on
their own when a crisis comes, they are just projecting the results of their
bureaucrat-driven approach to rationing that makes you the government’s safety
net (c.f., also defined benefit state
employee pensions and failing public schools).
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