Burning Thoughts

On last Sunday’s talk show, I got to hear Paul Ryan talk about his budget proposal.  I was very impressed with his rhetorical skills and corresponding disappointed in that of his interviewer.

Two points in particular:

• He said he doesn’t get his ideas from polls.  As a leader, he expects the polls to follow him.
  • He turns a negative, most people disagree with his plan, into a pat on his own back.
  • Why wasn’t he asked how he was going to accomplish that transition in sentiment?
• He craftily said Obamacare rations health care while his proposal gives choices.
  • Truthfully both are rationing. The difference is his proposal turns the rationing over to the free market, while Obama’s tries to control the rationing.
  • Why wasn’t this similarity of rationing brought out and why was he allowed to escape specifying the cost of choices under his proposal?

Rationing of healthcare will inevitably be enforced. The real question is—will it be done by government bureaucrats with medical advisers or by the pricing mechanism of the Invisible Hand?

Picture of Paul Ryan by US House Office of Photography – https://www.speaker.gov/about, Public Domain, wikimedia commons