The House or the Cancer?

Your Winnebago or your life?

In today's National Review column by Jonah Goldberg, Tyranny of the Typical, he covers a recent Wolf Blitzer/Ron Paul face-off during a Republican debate.

Goldberg makes his point by recalling Murray Rothbard's Fable of the Shoes (Libertarian Manifesto, Chapter 10) as he introduces his defense of Ron Paul's answer to the pathetic question: what should happen if a man refuses to get health insurance and then has a medical crisis.  Paul's answer needs no defense, at least it is a perfectly fine answer for anybody who has seen the world beyond the classroom or playground:

“We’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves,” he observed. “Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it.”

 I find myself surprised that the long running, frequently posed, false dichotomy has not been tossed out against Doctor Paul in the wake of the debate:  Someone lost their house because they had to pay for their own healthcare!  Perhaps that nonsense is still going on at Slate, The New Republic, and other bastions of socialism thinly hidden behind their latest Progressive banner?  At any rate, that was the topic I wanted to cover here and I shall hijack this debate question for my own sinister ends.

So, there was this old woman who lived in a house and she got cancer.  She had several well-to-do children and grandchildren and they did not know what to do.  The old woman had some insurance, but the did not have the foresight to purchase insurance with an infinite benefit, but her house was worth a fortune. So, the grandma was faced with a dilemma: sell the house to pay medical bills, or die and leave the house free and clear to her well-to-do relatives.

Of course, if the government were not ruled by 'Corporate Nazis' she would have universal healthcare and be cured.  That is why we need Hillary/Gore/Kerry/Obama Care, or those fascist Republicans will kill her!

I made up the version above, so the details are different, but the story is the same from one year to another.  My favorite version was from candidate Al Gore about one Winifred Skinner, who was reduced to collecting aluminum cans to pay for her prescription medications.  The truth was, her son has always offered to pay for anything she needed and she had other sources of income.  To make it look even worse, and I am surprised that Karl Rove was not given credit for the Winnebago portion of the story.  This 'poor' woman, who could not make ends meet, drove from Iowa to Boston for the event in a Winnebago.  Turns out, the vehicle and gas were furnished by the Gore campaign.

Now, to what sort of Leftist, Socialist mind is this a sympathetic character at all?  Only the loftiest of limousine liberals could possibly believe that adding a comfy recreational vehicle to this story makes it a bigger tearjerker!

So, imagine the woman really had a Winnebago.  What is more important, the drugs or the vehicle?  Yes, that is a serious question.  I have known people in my almost half-a-century on this earth who really would rather spend the last of their wealth on comfort over care that may prolong their lives for a few more years.  These are known as practical people.

The practical folk do not rely on others when they can do for themselves, well frequently anyway.  There is a range, I am sure, where they may grudgingly ask a friend or relative for assistance.  They are the opposite of the socialist, who will demand from all of society that they are provided for with the lifestyle of their choosing.  Many a college professor and politician come to mind.

The real question is: What is more important, your health or your stuff?  The socialists turn it into a punchline from a Jack Benny routine.

So, in the mind of the urban and suburban Leftoid, it is perfectly fine for the McMansion to remain the property of the ailing grandmother whilst the rest of us pay for her hospital visits and drugs so that a new generation can have an inheritance, at a value below the "rich kid" death tax rate, of course.

So, how did America survive before the government rushed in to save us from certain death and poverty?  Scroll back up and read Ron Paul's quoted answer.