ObamaCare is just the latest “Great New System”

As some Americans remain swept up in the attempt to further socialize health care, it’s helpful to remember that excitement about a proposed sweeping change to the system is not a new phenomenon.

Adam Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, lamented that people are easily duped by the promises of an alluring Great New System. Such people, Smith says, “are commonly intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of this ideal system, of which they have no experience, but which has been represented to them in all the most dazzling colours in which the eloquence of their leaders could paint it. Those leaders themselves, though they originally may have meant nothing but their own aggrandisement, become many of them in time the dupes of their own sophistry and are as eager for this great reformation as the weakest and foolishest of their followers.”

(h/t to Don Boudreaux for the quote)

We need to remember that there is no perfect system in health care, and ObamaCare is no exception. The pros and cons of every system need to be thoroughly studied and debated. This is one of the many reasons Americans are demanding that legislators read the health care reform bills before voting on them.

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