How to be a jerk in one dishonest column

What on earth is wrong with the person who wrote (and agreed to publish) this? There's no such thing as ventilator insurance!

Update: Ezra was willing to dive in deeper -- I can't bring myself to discuss such a despicable display of misanthrope with anything but shock.

Comments

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

I think some economists see being misanthropic and heartless as what separates the men from the boys. And so they're like, "Ha ha, now I can be misanthropic and heartless... Rrrrrr!"

[Trapier K. Michael]

Whenever your policy assumptions are tested at the extremes it isn't pretty. The writer is obviously coming at healthcare from a right wing, conservative, there's-no-free-lunch perspective and in the Baylor case he sites, the choice is thus between someone dying and him keeping true to his politics (there are similar extremes for the left wing, liberal, everyone-gets-equal-access-to-care position which can lead to rationing and denial of care as well).

But this author gets an F- for being smug about it and using this case as a teaching moment. It is not a political teaching moment. It is a sad and terribly unfortunate moment. And it is not a shining example of his policy assumptions at work. It's one that should cause him to pause and question those assumptions.

[Kate]

Well put.