Al Gore has just come

Al Gore has just come out in favor of a Canadian-style, “single payer” health care system. This is the same Al Gore who, if I recall correctly, bashed Bill Bradley for favoring such a system during the 2000 presidential primaries. Gore clearly doesn’t want anyone serious to be on his left during the 2004 presidential primaries. As David Frum notes in this piece from National Review Online, the Canadian system is wildly unpopular here (voters in liberal Oregon have just rejected it) and properly so. As Frum, a Canadian, puts it, “Canada has the best health care system on earth — so long as you don’t get sick.” But Gore, I think, realizes that he can only defeat President Bush if (a) he gets the nomination from his leftward-turning party and (b) things really go to hell, in which case no one will hold his support for “single payer” against him.

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