Forget single payer health; this guy thinks the US's current health system isn't privatized enough. Labor laws are obstacles to the free market. You get what you can individually negotiate from your boss and all that. That makes him right-wing to me, I don't care what he says about "American empire," etc. Buchanan says that stuff, too. Maybe Ron Paul differs, but Libertarians by definition don't like minimum wages, overtime pay, unemployment, etc., mandated by the govt.
As a doctor he refused to see folks on Medicare and/or Medicaid, and his Wikipedia entry says that's because he was sticking to his Liibertarian guns -- but the entry generously adds often he would see Medicare patients but charge them less or let them pay in private installments instead of taking the tainted government money. (Yeah, I'm sure he did that ALL the time -- what a saint.)
That's a right wing agenda, to me. The odd thing is my gut tells me a lot of his supportive demographic comes from the ranks of the same sort of people that were supporting Howard Dean a few years ago. And the two have totally opposite ideas on healthcare. Dean, also a doctor, wanted to expand coverage. Paul wants to scale govt. coverage back. Around where I am, Paul has a lot of annoying support among, again, a fervent cult of white twenty- and thirty-somethings.
And Paul wants to repeal Roe v. Wade, too.
-B.
joyce brothers wrote:
"Hey guys, You may have problems with Paul. I certainly do. But, this guy was at the future Gold market bull when everyone here was laughing at it. So ya gotta wonder. Right? No. Left. No. Right. Or maybe not. smooches, paula"
Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
"[this was written around 5:30, updated at 6:20 - as of 9:55 EST it's $3.5m]"