The Cato Institute has noted for some time that conservatives and Republicans have abandoned their limited-government principles when it comes to health policy. Examples can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
The New America Foundation just made our job a little easier, by producing a paper titled, “Growing Support for Shared Responsibility in Health Care.” In this context, “shared responsibility” means allowing the government to force all Americans to purchase health insurance — a power the Left has craved but no government had dared assume until Massachusetts did so this year.
The paper helpfully compiles a list of comments that Republicans and Democrats have made in support of this new expansion of government power. The Republicans included:
- Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (no surpise there)
- Former Bush HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson
- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill
- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
One might add to that list the Heritage Foundation (whose health policy scholars wrote the Massachusetts mandate) and Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine.
Next to those, Schwarzenegger is probably the biggest disappointment, having once bragged that Milton & Rose Friedman’s PBS series Free to Choose “has changed my life,” and that “Being free to choose for me means being free to make your own decisions, free to live your own life, pursue your own goals…without the government breathing down on your neck or standing on your shoes.” Now that he’s governor, “being free to choose” presumably means being free to choose for you.
This new expansion of state power would be less frightening if it delivered more affordable or higher-quality health care. But as Mike Tanner demonstrates in two papers on the idea (here and here), it will do neither of those things.
Unfortunately, there has been too little debate within the limited-government camp over this idea. This is in part because Heritage Foundation scholars have repeatedly declined to debate Cato scholars or other free-market critics of their proposal.
Until we’re able to have that fuller debate, here’s a helpful algorithm for judging this and other health care proposals:
- Does it limit government power?
- If not, move on to the next proposal.
