Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Rubin's Question

In the 1/9/2011 Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin discusses the latest arguments about the costs of ObamaCare.

Here's the key question from "Now ObamaCare debate moves to the real world":
If the bill is vastly more expensive than advertised, causes great upset to consumers and negatively impacts care, shouldn't we repeal and replace it?
Rubin is absolutely correct -- we need to repeal and replace it. And in this process, the debates about the numbers (i.e., costs, deficits, etc.) are important.

But the key political driver behind the support for universal health care has never been economic but rather moral. Supporters of government-run health care simply believe it's "the right thing to do" on the grounds that a need to health care entitles one to an alleged "right" to health care -- even if it must be "guaranteed" via creating a huge new government program.

Hence, to effectively challenge ObamaCare, one must address the underlying issue as well -- namely, should government compel one man to pay for another's health care solely because the other man needs it? Or should government leave people alone to act as they wish -- to let them freely donate (or not) according to their own values and priorities to help others in need via private charity?

The "right thing to do" is not a government that redistributes wealth but one which protects individual rights, including the right to own and dispose of one's property as one wishes.

As Thomas Jefferson noted:
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
President Jefferson, not Obama, correctly understood what was "the right thing to do".