Wolf Blitzer had a good exchange with Ron Paul during the recent debate. Blitzer asked what should happen when someone chooses to not get health insurance, then has something bad happen and falls into a coma. Paul, IMHO, gave a non-answer. When asked whether that person should just be permitted to die, Paul said, among other things:One problem with that answer is that it only works for those who happen to belong to churches with the ability to raise huge sums of money, unless churches are going to really gear up with their fund raising efforts so that they can pay for unaffiliated people to stay in the ICU. Medical care costs have changed a bit since Dr. Paul practiced medicine. I don't know why this burden should fall to private charities. The richest country in the world (is that still us?) should be able to provide basic medical care, even for people who don't go to church and don't have any neighbors willing and able to pay for their medical care. Is he saying that churches would pick up the tab for a six-month stay in an ICU? I don't belong to a church, why do I get a free ride on that guy's big hospital bill?

People like Ron Paul and Paul Ryan would "fix" the looming Medicare/Medicaid problem by simply cutting off benefits. To me, and I hope to a majority of voters, that approach is unacceptable. Policy makers should focus on ways to reduce medical costs, not just tell people to do without. For example, if more people had health insurance, more people would take care of themselves, and fewer people would use emergency rooms for their primary care needs. Paul is just wrong when he says that "...the cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy..." That's a cop out.

Libertarianism has surface appeal, but it just doesn't work. When applied to the health care issue, libertarians would have people die for lack of medical care. They won't admit it. They will try to dance around the issue, but they have no way out. That's what their governing philosophy means.