Monday, the eminent left-wing economist, Paul Krugman, suggested that Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan was better than Barack Obama’s because Clinton’s would come closer to insuring everyone “at only slightly higher cost.” Of course, Krugman never questioned whether the left-wing goal of universal health insurance makes sense in the first place.
I remember a couple of decades ago seeing a demonstration in Washington with signs saying, “health care is a right, not a privilege.” At the time, it seemed like a very peculiar thing to say. All the other rights we are used to — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. — are designed to protect people from the government. They are promises that the government won’t interfere in certain aspects of our lives.
To say that health care is a right is just the opposite: it is a promise that the government will interfere in our lives, by taking our money and giving it to people who need health care.
