Catherine Rampell: Republicans take freedom away, in the name of freedom – Salt Lake Tribune

But what would repealing Obamacare mean in practice?

It would mean allowing insurers to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions; taking away the tax credits and Medicaid expansions that enabled more than 20 million Americans to newly obtain insurance over the past six years; and, thanks to the elimination of the individual mandate, ultimately causing the exchanges to death-spiral and collapse.

So, in championing the "freedom" that would be unleashed by an Obamacare repeal, Ryan and Pence are really championing the "freedom" for Americans to lose access to any health-care plan.

You know what they say: Freedom's just another word for nothing left to choose.

At least one politician has explicitly rooted for a decline in the insured rate because, duh, freedom.

"If the numbers drop, I would say that's a good thing, because we've restored personal liberty in this country, and I'm always for that," Rep. Michael C. Burgess, R-Tex., said at CPAC.

Enshrining discrimination against gay and transgender people has likewise been sold as a way of promoting "religious freedom," at least for anyone who believes Jesus would be unhappy about compliance with public accommodation laws or, say, the Constitution.

Sometimes the freedoms nominally being safeguarded are not individual ones but those of the states. Or so White House press secretary Sean Spicer claimed when explaining why the Trump administration was rescinding Obama-era guidance for schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choosing.

Financial deregulation and the repeal of consumer protections have also been puzzlingly marketed as pro-"freedom."

"Just like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank has left us with fewer choices, higher costs and less freedom," quoth Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "It's evident that Dodd-Frank has made us less prosperous and less free."

Franklin Roosevelt once declared that the "four essential human freedoms" were freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. The "freedom to get scammed by debt collectors" must have slipped his mind.

Given the quantity of American heartstrings pulled by the words "free" and "freedom," declaring one's commitment to "free markets" has also provided cover for all sorts of non-free-market nonsense. A sitting president ordering private companies where to locate, for instance.

"I'm a big free-trader," President Trump has said, while promoting all manner of protectionist measures. "I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me," he said at CPAC, minutes after again calling the media the enemy of the people.

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Catherine Rampell: Republicans take freedom away, in the name of freedom - Salt Lake Tribune