Our Health Policy Matters

As we gaze this week at the wonderland we call Congress, it might amaze us that Congress actually shut down the federal government over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Rep. John Culberson of Texas grinned like a Cheshire Cat as he explained it this way in an outlandish interview on CNN, “we do not want the federal government socializing health care as they have in England and in France.” This is socialized medicine?  Really? He wasn’t content to leave it there, adding a new “sacred” right to the Constitution to explain further his position. “The right to be left alone as Americans is probably our most important right.” As the Mad Hatter would say, “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat is the same as I eat what I see.’”  But Representative Culberson was on a roll.  Literally.  This was two days after he was reported to have shouted “let’s roll!” as House Republicans concluded a caucus in which they re-affir...

As we gaze this week at the wonderland we call Congress, it might amaze us that Congress actually shut down the federal government over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Rep. John Culberson of Texas grinned like a Cheshire Cat as he explained it this way in an outlandish interview on CNN, “we do not want the federal government socializing health care as they have in England and in France.” This is socialized medicine?  Really? He wasn’t content to leave it there, adding a new “sacred” right to the Constitution to explain further his position. “The right to be left alone as Americans is probably our most important right.” As the Mad Hatter would say, “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat is the same as I eat what I see.’”  But Representative Culberson was on a roll.  Literally.  This was two days after he was reported to have shouted “let’s roll!” as House Republicans concluded a caucus in which they re-affir...