Out of desperation, Obama makes the conservative case

Last week, President Obama gave an interview to Spanish-language media. In a question from the audience, a man observed that he can't afford the plans available to his family under ObamaCare. Obama's response is interesting.

I guess what I would say is if you looked at that person's budget, and you looked at their cable bill, their telephone bill... other things that they're spending on, it may turn out that it's just they haven't prioritized health care.

What is interesting is that this is a fundamentally conservative argument. The notion that individuals are responsible for their own needs, and that they must prioritize and make informed choices about what is best for them is not something we hear from the Left very often.

If only Obama actually believed this and championed policies that were grounded on this philosophy. We would be spared programs like ObamaCare, Common Core, minimum wage laws, "stimulus" bills, and the rest. All these programs are founded on exactly the opposite premise: that the needs of every person and family are the same, and that only a few Really Smart People in Washington know what those needs are, how they should be provided, how much they should cost, and how much you should be fined if you don't do as you're told.

The truth is, Obama doesn't believe the things he said in the interview. He only said them because they were convenient. When confronted with the on-the-ground reality that the "Affordable" Care Act isn't actually affordable, he adopted an argument his opponents have been making all along for why ObamaCare is a bad idea: Everyone's circumstances are different. They know their circumstances better than anyone else. And so they need as much freedom as possible to prioritize and make the choices that are best for them and their families.