Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Lou Dobbs Option
Of the many perverse, twisted things in the health care monstrosity otherwise called reform, writes Shikha Dalmia in here latest Forbes column, its treatment of illegal immigrants might be the worst. If the Senate has its way, undocumented aliens will be barred from using their own money to buy health coverage from the proposed insurance exchange. This means, Dalmia notes, that at the same time the government will tell Americans how they must spend their money, thanks to the individual mandate, it will tell undocumented aliens where they can't spend theirs. This should be deeply troubling to civil libertarians. "Government intrusiveness combined with government discrimination is not a formula for social justice," she writes. It will make the progressive goal of universal coverage unattainable by permanently locking out a big chunk of the uninsured population from the health care market. If this is not a deal breaker for progressives, what is?