Brad DeLong sometimes has a knack for aphorism:
The thing to complain about is not the creeping socialization of the medical sector. After all, market solutions simply do not work well in an area as rife with adverse selection as health insurance. (Unless, of course, one is happy with lots of very sick people not getting treatment.) The thing to complain about is the badly-done creeping socialization of the medical sector: there are many semi- and non-market ways of organizing health insurance that are even worse than our current system, and it looks as though today’s Washington Republicans are trying to find one.
And might we add that it’s creeping socialization without the government actually charging any more through taxes. As the Economist remarks, the Medicare law is written in red ink.
By the way, it’s interesting that the Medicare bill has been read as THE watershed moment in the realignment of the political parties, from E. J. Dionne’s take from the left and David Brooks’ take from the right, together the must-read articles of the last week. Neither is very optimistic about the Democrats’ chances for the remotest exercise of power any time soon.
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