Megan McArdle at Bloomberg about a week ago: ‘Republicans’ Obamacare Alternative, Finally‘

‘In this debate, you can see the shape of where our politics may go over the next 20 years. Many Republicans would like a much smaller entitlement state; some Democrats would like a much bigger one, with Sweden-style universal coverage of virtually everything, crib to grave. Neither one is going to get what they want, because Americans are not prepared to give up their Social Security checks, or 60 percent of their paychecks either — and no, there is not enough money to fund these ambitions, or even our existing entitlements, by simply taxing “the rich.”

I suppose we’ll see.  From Forbes: ‘Why The Affordable Care Act Isn’t Here To Stay In One Picture‘

A large, new ‘entitlement’ program is trying to get started just as two others are coming due and just as the population grays considerably.  For some, a redistributive (your money overseen by others), technocratic. entitlement State is the goal, as ‘fairness,’ ‘equality’ and other ideological/moral endgames are at play, regardless of any cost/benefit analyses and whether or not such promises could ever be kept in the real world:

‘The proportion of the population that is signing up for Obamacare is concentrated in the very lowest income categories while Obamacare is obviously unattractive to everyone else.’

Via Avik Roy, there’s really no free lunch, and more need than can ever be accounted for, out in that real world:

‘As a side effect, medical care for the poor does not improve simply by expanding the government program. Roy pointed to several studies that showed people on Medicaid actually got worse service than those with no insurance at all.’

=============================

Mark Steyn on that ongoing court case where climate science meets all the incentives, political, personal, and monied, that coalesce around a cause/revenue stream in the real world:

‘Usually in these situations, the defendant is supposed to fall silent for the half-decade or more it takes the dysfunctional court system to get around to hearing the case. But I decided to go a different route.’