Liberal Talk Radio

Apropos of our discussions of health care, Ezra Klein boils down the debate nicely:

Liberals really do craft health care policy with the intent of broadly sharing costs. The idea is that everyone should be able to afford care and coverage. Conservatives are trying to move towards a system where we pay basically what we owe, with insurance acting — for those who can afford it — as a check against ruin. Both systems create winners: In the conservative vision, it’s those who are healthy and/or young and/or lucky and/or conscientious. In the liberal vision, it’s rather the opposite. A liberal will tell you that, eventually, we’re all going to be part of that opposite group, and that’s the moment when policy should protect us. A conservative would say that sets up incentives to ignore your health and overuse care. But that, on a policy level, is the debate.

I think that’s right.