because that wasn’t what I was talking about.

What I was talking about was Obama (or anybody else) speaking to the American people, reviewing the basic axioms of a free market one by one–rational choice, atomistic buyers and sellers, and especially the law of supply and demand–and then explaining why public health just doesn’t map neatly onto those axioms. I know that’s what you liberals really believe. And you’re right! But you seem strangely reluctant to hammer that point to the American public.

I’ve already explained that here on FrumForum numerous times. For example, with health care for human beings there are no concepts of depreciation or replacement cost which would act as a cap on demand for health care services, as they do for automobile repair services or home remodeling services, or even (sometimes) for veterinary health care services for animals. (At least not until the science-fiction dream of human reproductive cloning is realized, at which point all bets are off.) If you try to value human beings like commodities in a free market for the purpose of apportioning health care services (which are never unlimited), you end up with Social Darwinism, Soylent Green, or Logan’s Run–or maybe some combination of these. That may be O.K. for China, but not for America. (That would be a good point for Obama’s speeches, don’t you think?)

The GOP has been claiming that the way to solve the health care problem is to make the system even freer, with tax cuts and purchases of insurance across state lines. The assumption is that you can make a free market in health care work. The argument I had hoped to hear from Obama (or ANY other prominent liberal official) is why a free market in health care cannot work.

Oh, sure, I can read such arguments in The New Republic or occasionally on American Prospect. But comparatively few Americans read The New Republic; and the immediate pivot to proposing a single-payer system (which many Americans reject) tends to obfuscate the main point.

Mitt Romney is a capitalist and a staunch opponent of socialism. Yet the RomneyCare he created for us here in MA has guaranteed issue and a public option for the truly needy. He’s smart enough to know when free market axioms break down.

Reagan used to defend the basic axioms of patriotism, capitalism and free trade as philosophical concepts representing (to him) the highest good. Publicly, in his speeches to ordinary Americans. They didn’t have to read National Review to hear those things.

What attracted even non-conservatives to Reagan is that they saw he had a philosophy and vision that at least was clear and could act as a framework for policy. What’s bothering many Americans about Obama is that, if he has a clear philosophy about such things as capitalism and America’s role in the world, he’s not stating it clearly as a philosophy, without recourse to cheap gimmicks like having Americans as examples sitting in the balcony that he can point to.

OK, rant over.

You mean like this?

Our collective failure to meet this challenge — year after year, decade after decade — has led us to the breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or too expensive to cover.

…

But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem for the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won’t pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

I thought you called that speech weak at the time.

Because a totally free-market approach to health care is unworkable for a humane society.

Alan Grayson did frame this accurately, albeit harshly.

The debate between liberals and conservatives should be over HOW MUCH public sector involvement and HOW MUCH private sector involvement is appropriate to the health care problem.

Exactly right.

But that debate is impossible when the Republican Party believes their primary pathway to return to power is to make sure that this debate doesn’t really get airing, and that everyone just hears “Socialism” whenever health care reform that takes positive steps to increase coverage is proposed.

No – Obama made that speech Sinz. Very clearly. And all everyone wanted to talk about after was Joe Wilson yelling “you lie” … instead of talking about what Obama meant when he said the following, and what everyone in Congress could do to work with him to craft a healthcare bill that met his criteria.

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s — (applause) — where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everybody. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end employer-based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

I’ve said — I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both these approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch

I could explain that easily, and I’m not even a liberal!

And until everybody–including conservatives–accept the need for a significant public-sector component to dealing with health care, Obama and the Dems are going to continue to be on the defensive–to the point that there’s a real chance that no health care reform will be enacted at all. Because a totally free-market approach to health care is unworkable for a humane society. It must necessarily end up with Soylent Green or Logan’s Run scenarios–in which if you’re sufficiently sick, you’re not worth caring for unless you can go begging to churches or private charities, as was the case in the 19th century. (That’s also the case with a totally socialistic single-payer system, as we’ve seen with the British NHS.)

The debate between liberals and conservatives should be over HOW MUCH public sector involvement and HOW MUCH private sector involvement is appropriate to the health care problem. Health care is one of these complex issues that doesn’t map neatly onto socialism and it doesn’t map neatly onto capitalism.

There’s no reason why roads should not be privately managed, although I’m not going to use my limited amount of time to rail on this particular point. If roads were the only thing they were in…

Against what?

Clearly if people are paying for the services (people, not government’s through tax dollars), they want/need the service.

Yes. Because there is a failure of government to provide fire protection on an adequate scale, so wealthy people can afford to contract private fire protection services, while poor people know that when the fires come down the canyon their home is almost certainly gone for.

California ruined itself.

There we have agreement. The referendum system has been democracy at its worst. Voters always were willing to add more costly services, and voters were always willing to pay for more limits on tax revenues. And politicians were punished at the ballot box if they ever tried to tell people they had to grow up. The resulting train wreck was very predictable.

That said – privatization of government assets and critical services represents a combination of poor governance and corruption.

Clearly if people are paying for the services (people, not government’s through tax dollars), they want/need the service.

California ruined itself.

Clearly you haven’t been paying attention as Indiana sold their highway system to foreign companies, Rick Perry in Texas has been trying to do the same, and a big push to lease the Alligator Alley freeway in Florida to corporations was barely averted.

And Sean Linnane is regularly on this site extolling the privatization of much of what our US military did just 30 years ago.

Meanwhile, while California laws starve its tax revenues, and services plummet, private firms are popping up in fire-prone areas like Ventura County to supply fire protection services to upper class customers.

Maybe one day Mr. Debs will realize that the “market” IS civil society. You doubt me? Then what is it exactly?

And what exactly are conservatives proposing to take away from the state, except what its seized from “the market?” I don’t hear anyone talking about talking about privatizing the military, or fire departments, or public roads. I don’t hear protests over the space program. I don’t hear that the court system should be publicized.

What exactly are you referring to? I dare say you can’t name one thing that conservatives would give back to society that wasn’t originally society’s before the state took it over.