The core problem with President Obama’s most recent speech in defense of his health care law was not that he simply overestimated the merits of Obamacare. It’s that he refused to acknowledge that conservatives have reasonable disagreements with him about the direction of health care policy. President Obama claims that Republicans have offered no alternatives to the health care law when they have in fact outlined their own far-ranging plans for health policy. President Obama believes that only comprehensive insurance policies are real insurance. Conservatives generally believe, by contrast, that people should be free to buy cheaper policies that protect them only from financial catastrophes arising from their health needs.

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