The Obamacare Pep Rally

Conn Carroll / August 11, 2009

We will have a longer point by point fact check of President Barack Obama’s Porstmouth, New Hampshire, health care townhall tomorrow morning, but one talking point Obama made today, and the White House has made before, is that health insurance companies already ration health care so Americans shouldn’t mind if the government does it instead. The Atlantic‘s Megan McArdle dismantled that line of reasoning last night:

“we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing.” This is a true point made by the proponents of health care reform. But I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be so interesting. You could make this statement about any good:

“We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing.”
“We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing.”

And indeed, this was an argument that was made in favor of socialism. (No, okay, I’m not calling you socialists!) And yet, most of us realize that there are huge differences between price rationing and government rationing, and that the latter is usually much worse for everyone. This is one of the things that most puzzles me about the health care debate: statements that would strike almost anyone as stupid in the context of any other good suddenly become dazzling insights when they’re applied to hip replacements and otitis media. (more…)