I’m not feeling well today, so I’ll confine myself to commenting on the top story from today’s paper:

Virginia judge rules part of health care law unconstitutional

Reasonable people can differ. I can understand why people are upset that the government plans to require people to buy health insurance. Nobody likes the government telling them what to do, and this is especially true when the government is being run by a party with which you habitually disagree. If Bush were still in charge, and this health care reform law was his fault, I might honestly object to it, too.

Romney. (Pic | Jessica Rinaldi)

It’s not crazy to suggest that Bush could have enacted this law, either. The core provision that Cuccinelli objects to is the requirement to buy health insurance. In fact, this was a Republican idea, part of a model for state-level health care reform enacted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. As Steve Kornacki wrote for Salon last March, “Romney is actually the only governor in American history ever to impose an individual health insurance mandate on his citizens.” During the Clinton push for nationalized health care, Republicans floated a Romney-style plan for the nation, marketed as a more conservative alternative to government-run health care. It was considered more palatable to conservatives because it is, at its heart, a business-friendly law. It maintains private insurance companies as the for-profit administrators of insurance plans. Instead of replacing a private industry with a government bureaucracy, the government simply steps in as an enforcer, making health insurance a legal requirement, and collecting fines from those who avoid the system.

Now of course, Romney himself has come out as one of the loudest detractors of Obama’s health care law, despite its obvious similarities to his own. This is simple hypocrisy, and I like to point it out whenever I get a chance.

But I said that reasonable people can disagree. I can understand the discomfort people feel that the government is suddenly requiring them to buy a product from a private industry. I’d be marching in the street if a law required me to, say, buy a gun to protect my home. Ironically, this concession to protect the private insurance industry has become the new law’s greatest vulnerability. If the law had simply expanded the government and imposed a new health insurance tax, Cuccinelli would have no grounds for a suit.

Let’s not mince words. The individual mandate to buy insurance, albeit from a private company, is a tax in disguise. It was fashioned that way to make it more agreeable to insurance companies, and to people who oppose forking over money to the government in general. To me it actually makes sense in this case. There are all kinds of provisions built into the law that are designed to make sure it is not overly onerous to people of limited income. And the fact is, at one time or another we are all users of the health care system. But if Cuccinelli’s suit makes it to the Supreme Court and prevails, we’re back to the drawing board on health care reform, because without the mandate, the system will unbalance financially and quickly fall apart.

In general, I’d ask people one thing: to step away from the rhetoric, the bullshit about death panels and socialism and Nazis and other inflammatory words that are designed to sink the discussion below the rational level and turn it into a hatefest. This is a national topic of great importance. It’s too important to allow loose talk to rule the debate.