The Make Inequality Worse Act of 2017 - By E.J. Dionne Jr.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Novelist Anatole France’s mischievous observation came to mind when the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the Republican cut-taxes/gut-Medicaid bill and its defenders went into a continuous loop talking about “freedom.” Conservatives are fond of saying that freedom isn’t free. This is entirely true, especially when it comes to health care.
Republicans speak of the wondrous things that will happen if they succeed in slaying the monster known as “Obamacare.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) offered this rush of animated words to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: “You need to have an individual market where people care about what things cost, where people have real freedom, where those providers of health-care services, be they insurers, doctors or hospitals and everybody in between, compete against each other for our business based on value, based on price, based on quality, based on outcome.”
Ryan spoke to Hewitt shortly before the CBO concluded that under his legislative contraption, 24 million fewer people would be insured over the next decade. Ryan dismissed the CBO in advance by accepting that the coverage numbers would, indeed, drop because people would be able to exercise a newfound right to be uninsured, much as they might be liberated to sleep under bridges or beg in the streets.
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