Friday, March 23, 2012

The GOP and Health Care

This Jonathan Chait essay offers the best account of the conservative view of health care I have read.

His comments accurately describe attitudes I have personally seen expressed by conservatives, who equate health insurance with a privilege to be earned. Providing health insurance--even private insurance--through a government subsidy is welfare for the undeserving poor. Receive chemotherapy and you are a welfare queen.

What I have never heard an explanation for is why no other advanced country on the planet takes this attitude. Even the most conservative parties in other advanced countries see basic health care as a fundamental right of citizenship. Margaret Thatcher had much to say on the subject. Only American conservatives take this position. It is despicable.

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