Ethics

Question of the Day

By Ed Brayton

If you're convinced that any form of government-run or government-paid health care is a terrible, evil system that destroys liberty, takes away private choices, leads to rationing and early death and allows faceless bureaucrats to decide who lives and who dies -- all commonly heard arguments, I think you'll all agree -- shouldn't you also be in favor of eliminating the VA health care system entirely? After all, you wouldn't want to inflict such an evil system on our veterans, would you?

It seems to me that if you aren't in favor of doing away with the VA and Medicare, you can't really believe the arguments you're making against the horrible evils of "socialized medicine." If you really believe that government-run or government-paid health care is something that the government can't do, or that can only be done at the expense of those who live under that system, the VA and Medicare would obviously have to go too. And if you don't believe that, you're engaging in an obvious red herring.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on September 05, 2009 (boomark / email).