Peggy Noonan On Obama-Care

Peggy Noona wrote a so-so piece in the weekend Wall Street Journal hypothetically returning FDR and Nixon to life to counsel their respective parties. Interesting, entertaining, but not really very practical.

The prior weekend's column, however, had some interesting aspects to it. Written for the 25-26 July edition of the Journal, Noonan began by roundly criticizing Wonderboy's dreadful healthcare press conference earlier that week.

In the second half of the piece, Noonan provided her personal belief as to why she thinks massive government-run healthcare will fail. The first two included reasons not everyone might immediately notice: current freedom of doctors to selectively discount fees, and the aversion by the majority of Americans to paying for abortions with federal healthcare dollars.

But her last contention was, for me, by far the most interesting and, frankly, typically wacked out Noonanspeak.

The former Reagan speechwriter believes that Wonderboy's new healthcare will finally give the upper classes, with their better education, diets, lower smoking rates, and better fitness, all positively correlated, by the way, the right and avenue by which to curb unhealthy behaviors of the lower-class masses. As Noonan wrote,

"Only a generation ago such criticisms would have been considered rude and unacceptable. But they are part of the ugly, chafing price of having the government in something: Suddenly it can make big and very personal demands on you.

Those who live in a way that isn't sufficiently healthy "cost us money" and "drive up premiums." Mr. Obama himself said something like it in his press conference, when he spoke of a person who might not buy health insurance. If he gets hit by a bus, "the rest of us have to pay for it."

Under a national health-care plan, we might be hearing that a lot. You don't exercise, you smoke, you drink, you eat too much, and "the rest of us have to pay for it."

Wake up, Dear. It's already been the case for decades.

Have you never heard of health insurance mandates, Peggy?

See, I don't think these sentiments are at all ugly. And I think people have been voicing them, at least in certain behaviors, for decades.

But what really has had me feeling that way for ages is the fact that I can't buy a tailor-made health insurance policy for my lifestyle and specific needs. I don't need obstetrics or pediatric care. Since I exercise constantly, eat heathily, don't smoke or drink, I want a big, big discount on my policy.

But I can't get one. Instead, I'm carrying the load of a lot of unhealthy, sedentary fatties who are allowed to average-in to my policy class. Not to mention the higher price Americans have paid for steel or cars for years, thanks to the unions in those sectors securing generous, free or cheap healthcare which, of course, made it nearly costless for those blue collar workers to live incredibly unhealthily.

I don't think there's anything wrong with condemnation in the public square of unhealthy lifestyle habits, so long as we are all forced to buy mandate-loaded policies, and carry those with pre-existing conditions at no extra charge.

So, Peggy, you got this one all wrong. It's actually high time we either make criticism of unhealthy living explicit, or free us all to be allowed mandate-free policies.

There is no middle ground.