Looks like this uneasy compromise between private moneyed interests and our national commitment to the life and health of our citizens is off to a rocky start, and I’m afraid it may fail.

I wish Obamacare was the title of a single-payer national healthcare system, or at the very least, a public option (freedom to choose!). Healthcare should be considered essential infrastructure like roads and bridges, or a national defense of the citenzenry like the military, not a mere consumer or luxury good. This is because it is the hyper-social, cooperative side of human nature, where we band together to protect and nourish each other, that makes us a successful species. This, in turn, is what makes the other freedoms we enjoy possible. Remember, we have no freedoms when we’re dead or incapacitated. Human liberty requires human cooperation in order to exist at all.

That is, if we consider preserving human life of greater importance than the license to grab as much money as we want regardless of the harm we cause doing so.