"Obamacare" has become a measure for the extent of corruption on the right. "Obamacare" does, of course, remove a quick and easy source for campaign funds. Clean the private insurance cartel out of many of the dark corners of health care and Oklahoma representatives, Tennessee real estate moguls, and stray senators feel a more than a little faint -- not to mention a governor or two.
Consider the case of Florida, whose governor, Rick Scott, made his personal fortune in the health industry. At one point, by the way, the company he built pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and paid $1.7 billion in fines related to Medicare fraud. Anyway, Mr. Scott got elected as a fierce opponent of Obamacare, and Florida participated in the suit asking the Supreme Court to declare the whole plan unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Mr. Scott recently shocked Tea Party activists by announcing his support for the Medicaid expansion.
But his support came with a condition: he was willing to cover more of the uninsured only after receiving a waiver that would let him run Medicaid through private insurance companies. Now, why would he want to do that?
Don’t tell me about free markets. This is all about spending taxpayer money, and the question is whether that money should be spent directly to help people or run through a set of private middlemen. ... Paul Krugman
Okay, okay! What do liberals really want?
Well -- just for a start -- I'd like to hear a really intelligent discussion about just how free our free markets are. Seriously. Who gets the most freedom? Producers or consumers? About the only choice a consumer gets is whether to pay up or go without.
In case you haven't got a good answer to that, take a look at Krugman's bottom line when it comes to health care.
So ignore all the talk about too much government spending and too much aid to moochers who don’t deserve it. As long as the spending ends up lining the right pockets, and the undeserving beneficiaries of public largess are politically connected corporations, conservatives with actual power seem to like Big Government just fine. ...Paul Krugman
