LogFAQs > #881752159

The fundamental idea of Obamacare/Romneycare is that the problem with healthcare costs is that there are too many freeloading poor people who don't want to buy health insurance and are driving up costs for everyone else, and so we should force them to contribute to the system.

This is both a stupid idea because even if it were true that this kind of freeloading were driving up national healthcare costs, it doesn't come remotely close to explaining the gaping chasm in costs between the US and every other first world country. It is also evil in that it expressly demonizes low income people (similar to Republicans blaming other problems on welfare recipients), refuses to acknowledge their ability to intelligently make decisions (such as not buying a product because they can't afford it), and goads more affluent people into alternately blaming and patronizing less well off people.

And, it also entrenches the lack of a free market in healthcare in the US (it wasn't very free before, but Obamacare codifies it and places the whole burden of making things run smoothly on government bureaucrats).

As I see it, it is really the worst of both worlds. I guess it's not surprising the Heritage Foundation came up with the outline, but it ought to be disturbing that the Democrats have spent the last 7 years steadfastly defending one of the worst ideas produced by the Republican Party in the last 20.
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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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