There is No Freedom in the "Freedom" Caucus

As a member of the Congressional House Freedom Caucus, Dave Brat has opted to apply his influence as an ideologue. He and the other members of his caucus believe that by banding together they could promote a pro-Libertarian ideology that has its modern roots with social philosophers such as Ayn Rand (yes, Rand Paul’s namesake) and contemporary advocates such as the Koch brothers.

This ideology promotes small government, but idealizes the concept of no government. It promotes the reduction of regulations, but swoons over the idea of no regulations.  It views the concept of Democracy as an Achilles Heel and (oddly for Conservatives) is vehemently anti-religion.  In fact, Capitalism is elevated to the status of a religion for today’s Libertarian (despite their public protests to the contrary).

It is a concept that glorifies only the individual in society and demonizes any efforts for people to act collectively. It views itself as the antithesis of something like Communism. However, very much like Communism, Dave Brat and the Koch Brother’s chosen politics are not workable in the real world and always gravitate toward self-interest, greed, and exploitation.

There is no issue in this year’s election that illustrates this better than Health Care.

 If you listen to Brat or read his campaign pronouncements he claims that all problems with Health Care in the United States can be solved with “free market solutions”.  I would not claim for a second that Dave Brat is a stupid man. Given his Libertarian bent I suspect he wants to believe his claims more than he actually believes them. The reason is that there are no “free market solutions” to health care. The people of the United States have paid a dear price with both money and pain to prove it.

That Dave Brat considers himself an “economist” only adds irony to his shameful and disingenuous advocacy.

The rest of the world has figured out that freedom can only exist where there is an absence of fear. Who hasn’t encountered a young person, a parent perhaps, afraid of changing jobs or of being fired because they might lose their health insurance? Who hasn’t heard individuals afraid of losing all they have because they or a family member got sick? I have watched individuals struggle over choices on allocating limited funds to insurance premiums and/or prescription drugs, afraid of the consequences in making the wrong choice. There is no “freedom” in any of it. Freedom, in this sense, only exists for those who have accumulated enough wealth to purchase it in the “free market”.

The reality is that Health Care in the real world, like many services that are necessary in a society, does not fit the Libertarian models. Demand does not drop when prices go up. Further, the purchasers of health care services (us) have no clear idea of cost and are at the mercy of a system that is intentionally opaque. As a result Americans have paid the happy Libertarians multiples more for health care than anywhere else on the planet.

The ACA (Obamacare) took us an important step away from that insanity. Dave Brat wants to take us back.

Abigail Spanberger, to her credit, has recognized that the ACA is not a complete answer to our Nation’s health care. She has advocated the integration of private and public insurance (expanding our current system; private plus Medicare, Medicaid, and VA) as has been successfully done in countries like Japan and Switzerland.  In doing so she knows that a Public Option would not only provide universal access, but also enable control of costs by empowering the large pool of Americans to negotiate or set costs, something the “free market” cannot do.

If Dave Brat was honest he would be advocating billboards and television commercials offering 20% off sales on hernia repairs and coronary bypass surgery.  Instead he regurgitates nonsensical statements echoed from talk radio like “32 trillion dollar takeover of health care” while in reality a $3.2 trillion annual cost for health care presented by Senator Sanders (which Spanberger is not a supporting).

Mr. Brat, health care in America is currently (and unfortunately) about a $5 trillion industry, of which a nauseating proportion goes into the pockets of your corporate supporters.  When you go back to teaching Economics next year, I suggest you enroll in some continuing education courses and take a better look at the definition of “Freedom”.