Equal Opportunity Hater - Healthcare Edition

Readers of this blog know that I have been rather critical of "conservative" posturing on healthcare, particularly since the opportunity to actually do something about the dreaded end of freedom as we know it Affordable Care Act has resulted in the Republican party doing precisely nothing. (Side note: Am I the only one thinking about those old "dog that caught the car" jokes?).

Anyway, I believe that one of the reasons why the Republican party failed so spectacularly at their efforts to repeal (and ostensibly replace) the Affordable Care Act have one predominant cause: they lied about what they were going to do for years; when the truth became known, people no longer supported their efforts.

As I have said repeatedly, if your policy ideas are that awesome, you shouldn't need to lie about them to get them enacted. If you have to lie about your policies to get support for them, your policy ideas probably suck.

With that said, I note that the coming default Democratic position on healthcare is going to be single payer (socialized medicine, for the scaremongers out there). I think that this is a great idea, given that other countries who have instituted some form of single payer generally have better outcomes for less money than does the United States. Uh, get 30% more for 30% less cost? Yes please! Of course, not all things are milk and honey in the world of single-payer healthcare. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

It is in this spirit that I implore my friends on the left: tell the truth about your plans for healthcare. The truth will come out sooner or later; telling the truth up front preserves your credibility.