From economist Tyler Cowen at Bloomberg, What Democrats Won’t Admit About Voters and Health Care

But keep in mind that the American Health Care Act of 2017 does not prevent states from spending whatever is needed to cover pre-existing conditions, if they so choose. The underlying truth is that voters at the state level just aren’t that interested in paying for these benefits, preferring instead to lower taxes, or to spend the money on roads, schools and prisons.

In other words, when American voters are given a direct bill for health-care expenditures, they recoil, even when the beneficiaries are in needy or desperate situations. The Democrats are good at tarring the Republicans for indifference to the plight of these people, but less keen to admit that the larger popular indifference plagues their own health-care visions as well.

A meme I’ve seen going around on Twitter put it this way: Health-care expenditures are about 1/6 of GDP, but no American wants to spend 1/6 of income on health care.

The failures reflect scarcity in the world around us. It turns out we value health care for others more in rhetoric than in reality.

HKO

Promising benefits and hiding the cost is no virtue. This is the real reason that Gruber and the Democrats lied so blatantly. Usurping the power of the consumer will not improve health care.

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