At Granite Grok, Skip is arguing that the government's involvement in a healthcare system providing coverage to all citizens translates into a boondoggle. That it might indeed, and like Skip I think there are procedures carrying costs that clearly should not be borne by the herd. He mentions bariatric surgery I would throw obstetrical care on top of that in the groundless hope that people would think a little harder before deciding to bud, but that's a different issue.
Some of Skip's ancillary points, however, drew my attention. He is, you see, is a fan of Personal Responsibility. (Actually, everyone is, at least in theory. I've never heard anyone claim out loud that the rest of the world should bear the brunt of their unruly...uh, never mind.) If you smoke cigarettes and weigh 300 pounds, I shouldn't have to foot the difference between your and my health insurance coverage, and under a universal government plan I'd probably wind up doing just that. And if you stay safely indoors at night while I run up and down the streets with an MP3 player blocking my hearing, you probably don't feel like paying the difference between what the actuarial tables say about you and what they say about me.
Regardless of how people feel about Uncle Sam's role in health insurance, things are never as simple as they ought to be. One of the hallmarks of the "you break it, you buy it" crowd when it comes to healthcare is that they pretend to be stepping back and looking at the whole picture when all they've done is get their feet tangled up, fall on their asses, and fixate on a single dimly lit portion of the sky.
In assembling his case, Skip cites the "sage words" of Townhall.com columnist Walter Williams regarding Mississippi's idiotic and dead-on-arrival House Bill 282, which proposed penalties against restaurants for serving fat people. Some of Williams' "sage" commentary:
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