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The Spectacle Blog

Rockefeller: Adam Smith Would Have Supported Government-Run Health Care

By Philip Klein on 9.29.09 @ 11:09AM

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, arguing this morning in favor of amending the Senate Finance Committee bill to include a government-run health care plan, claimed that his approach would have been supported by the intellectual father of capitalism, Adam Smith.

Rockefeller blasted the current draft of the bill, authored by committee Chairman Max Baucus, for being a massive handout to insurers. Insurers would get a half a billion dollars in subsidies, he said, and though the bill imposes a raft of new regulations on the industry, they'd easily be able to get around them if there weren't a government-run plan to keep them in check.

While liberals have long appropriated free market terms such as "choice" and "competition" to promote the creation of a new government-run plan, Rockefeller went even further, explicitly claiming that it was a "free market" idea.

"I think Adam Smith would have cooked up this amendment," he added.

I wrote about how to get real competition in the health insurance market here.

View all comments (6) | Leave a comment

Adam Smith| 9.29.09 @ 11:27AM

Hahahahahahaha...

Jo Konen| 9.29.09 @ 11:30AM

My opinion of all the health care proposals:

If it's not good enough for the Congress, the President, and the federal employees, it's not good enough for me and my family.

We must make Congress live under the laws they pass. Long ago we rebeled against the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings (making laws for others to live under, but not themselves). We must hold fast to that principle that all men are created equal. NONE is above the law! Congress and the President are "just one of us." They do not have the right to force us to accept things they themselves will not accept for themselves and their families.

Roy| 9.29.09 @ 1:23PM

I hear that "Congress should accept it for themselves" thing all the time, and it's a valid point, but I wouldn't accept a welfare option even if every member of Congress was theoretically on it.

When they go into a hospital and say "I'm Sen. Whatever" they are going to get better care from the government employees running the hospital who know which side the bread is buttered on.

Jim O'Brien| 9.29.09 @ 8:53PM

I wonder if Jay Rockefeller thinks John D. Rockefeller would have supported socialist medical care. Jay would be shoveling coal if it had not been for John D.'s Capitalism.

Dennis| 9.29.09 @ 10:49PM

Rockefeller is so full of crap his eyes are brown. He probably hasn't read this bill either so he really doesn't know what he's talking about as usual.

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