What’s next for ObamaCare?

That’s the title of a Jim Angle article on Fox News.com. RTWT, but what interests me are a couple of comments he quoted in his piece.

The first comment is this one, by John Goodman, a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute:

[I]if you repeal it, you’re going to have to replace it with something. And repeal and replace is just another way of saying we’re going to change ObamaCare into something different and better.

Of course. Free market solutions would work. “Change Obamacare” into…? Sure, if keeping the name proves tactically sound, that’s fine. Calling white black in order to get the black replaced with something better may be politically necessary, but it still won’t be black anymore. I’d prefer a better collection of names for the collection of smaller policies (rather than one large policy) that should replace this monstrosity, but that can come later.

Then there’s this bigger bit of nonsense from Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center:

[Y]ou need to not only say you’re against the ACA…, but you’re going to need to have a replacement plan to show people you have a better way of providing people with health insurance coverage.

That’s partly right. The upcoming Republican Congress does need to have a replacement plan. However, it’s not government’s job to “provid[e] people with health insurance coverage.” It’s the job of the market place and the private citizens interacting in it to provide people with the coverage they want—including no coverage at all. Government has no role in this whatsoever beyond its role of ensuring an honest market place.

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