A quote from the Wall Street Journal Byron York of the Washington Examiner frames the question this way: The key to Obamacare’s success or failure–provided the administration can actually learn to operate the system–is whether it helps more people than it hurts, or hurts more people than it helps. York makes a good case that it’s likely to hurt more people than it helps, but we’re unconvinced that his analytical framework is the right one. York’s “key” amounts to the philosophy of utilitarianism–the view that what is right (or in this case “success”) is what produces the greatest good for the greatest number. That idea seems appealing in the abstract, but it’s not hard to think of examples in which utilitarian calculations produce monstrous results. Suppose the mayor of an American town embezzles public funds and uses them to fund a charity providing food to children in the Third World. Even if the beneficiaries of such largess are more numerous and more needful than the townspeople, it would be hard to argue that the scheme was justified.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 13:56:12 +0000
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