Health Care BS

Since Ron Paul’s debate performance is still resonating through the blogosphere, I thought I’d contrast his health care stance with that of Hillary Clinton. It would be difficult to find two politicians further apart than these two on this issue. Dr. Paul believes the disease afflicting American health care is too much government while Mrs. Clinton famously believes the problem is not enough government.

But the most striking difference between the two involves candor. Paul is willing to say precisely what he thinks about health care, and what should be done about it, while Clinton is a case study in evasiveness. Here’s how the former talks about health care:

As a medical doctor, I’ve seen first-hand how bureaucratic red tape interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and drives costs higher … The lesson is clear: when government and other third parties get involved, health care costs spiral. The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine … As long as “somebody else” is paying the bill, the bill will be too high.

Now, here is AP trying to make sense of the meaningless platitudes that Clinton deployed on a recent campaign trip to Iowa:

The reason she hasn’t “set out a plan and said here’s exactly what I will do,” Clinton said, is that she wants to hear from voters what kind of plan they would favor … “I want the ideas that people have,” said Clinton. She said any health care plan must deal with the reality that there’s a unique climate in the country.

So, the candidate who actually says what he thinks about health care has virtually no chance of becoming president, while the candidate who refuses to come clean will probably be moving to the White House (again) in January 2009. What’s wrong with this picture?