True Barbarism

When the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act - and they will, Anthony Kennedy made that crystal-clear last week when he denied state employees the protection of federal law - when Obamacare dies, along with millions of suddenly uninsured Americans, remember this from Jonathan Chait:

Here [Romney] is in keeping with what has become almost a blood oath among Republicans. The conservative movement’s fanatical determination to achieve this goal — through the courts, through the election, through sabotage of its implementation by denying funds and refusing to confirm administrators — reveals an even higher level of commitment to the principle of denying health insurance to the undeserving. It is one thing to simply ignore the problem of the uninsured, by failing to act on it when you have power. But to actively crusade to throw vulnerable people off their newly-won health insurance is a higher sin, a sin of commission rather than omission.

In every other advanced country, the provision of universal access to medical care is a public responsibility. In every other advanced country, this principle has been accepted by the mainstream conservative party. Only in the United States does the conservative party uphold the operating principle that regular access to doctors and medicine should be denied to large chunks of the population. This sort of barbarism is unique to the American right.

Via Hullabaloo.