Strange doings in the cradle of liberty

The governor of Massachusetts -- the only prominent elected official named after a piece of baseball equipment -- has proposed a health care "reform" plan, which he claims will extend coverage to more people. Mitt Romney's reform consists of allowing insurers to sell plans with very limited benefits, such as no mental health or alcoholism treatment, which would be cheaper than standard plans; and some yet to be decided incentives or prods to get employers to offer coverage to more of their employees. Two ideas he has floated are raising the minimum wage for employers who don't provide health insurance, and making them put decals in their windows. A scarlet "U" I suppose, for Uninsured.

It turns out he had considered a proposal earlier which would have had the state providing about $800 million in subsidies for low-wage workers, and requiring people to get coverage. But, his aide tells us, "This is America, life, liberty, and happiness. The governor decided to see what could be done with softer mandates. Impinging on someone's liberty is not the first thing you should go to."

So it turns out that all those people in Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Monaco, Luxembourg and the rest of the members of the Organization for Econonmic Cooperation and Development don't enjoy life, liberty or happiness. They once were free, but now they are enslaved by having health insurance.

Not to worry though. In Massachusetts, the threat of having to put a decal in the window will get everybody covered without having to become communist slaves.

Guess what? Mitt insists that the state can't afford to spend one more penny on subsidizing health care for all those shiftless landscapers and burger flippers. It would destroy our liberty to make people pay taxes to do something so socialistic. Gee, I wonder what happens nowadays when those good-for-nothing house painters get sick and show up in the ER. It's a miracle! They get health care, but nobody has to pay for it.