Rep. Brat: Obamacare moves America toward becoming North Korea

There is hyperbole. Then there is this.

In an interview last week, Virginia’s 7th District Representative Dave Brat was asked about a recent Politifact report that rated his claim that repealing Obamacare would save “our nation more than $2 trillion” false. In typical Politifact fashion, they nit pick and say his numbers are outdated, it’d only save $1.75 trillion.

But that’s not what Brat argues (at least not in this clip). Instead, he begins to go off about how Obamacare is moving America away from a free market economy and he picks out an odd example:

“Look at every country in the world,” Brat said. “Look at North Korea and South Korea. It’s the same culture, it’s the same people, look at a map at night, half the, one of the countries is not lit, there’s no lights, and the bottom free-market country, all Koreans, is lit up. See you make your bet on which country you want to be, right? You want to go free market.”

Here’s the problem: South Korea has had a universal health system in place for over 40 years – one that is government subsidized, where the government sets the premiums, and all citizens receive the same amount of medical expenses and reimbursements no matter how much they are paid.

In fact, Koreans found the American debate over Obamacare absurd:

Part of the reason why the Korean did not follow the debate was because the entire thing was so moronic: to the Korean, it is obvious that a country should guarantee its citizens a health insurance, and the cheapest way to achieve that is a single-payer system like Korea’s. Scores of advanced and semi-advanced countries in the world manage to do this without turning their country into Russia. (Unless, of course, if their country is Russia.) There is no point in watching a debate where the other side is arguing the sky isn’t blue.

Now, there’s plenty to argue with here. And as Republicans and Free Market loving individuals who understand that more government is the problem, not the answer, we should be ready to argue it domestically.

But we can’t exactly hold South Korea up as a shining example of the free market when we’re trying to take a swipe at Obamacare.

Even as a bastion of the “free market,” one must keep in mind that South Korea also heavily subsidizes broadband internet expansion and access, alternative fuels, and agriculture while putting restrictions on private, free market subsidies on things like cell phones.

Yeah, North Korea is bad. But healthcare? More government subsidies? Regulation of the free market? Looks like Obama’s trying to turn us into South Korea, not North.

And that’s still a bad thing.