Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested today that the fight against Obama should be framed as a “freedom of choice” argument.
Paul agreed this morning on Fox by this week’s Florida special election winner David Jolly, who said Obamacare was an issue in the vote, “but at the end of the day, Obamacare just represents a view of government that is put forward by this president and I think many people reject.”
“I think he’s right, because Obamacare is not just about healthcare. It’s about freedom of choice,” Paul said. ‘The president’s telling you you’re too stupid to decide which doctor you want or which insurance plan you want. Even though he dishonestly said you could keep the doctor you wanted, apparently that’s not true.”
“And so, it’s a matter of trust, which is bigger than Obamacare, and it’s a matter of freedom of choice versus coercion. His conception of healthcare is that he tells you what kind of healthcare you can get because you’re not smart enough to make your choices. So it is a big issue, but it goes beyond healthcare to freedom of choice.”
The senator said GOPs need to lead the charge for an Obamacare replacement driven by “competition, choice, lower premiums and expanded health savings accounts to allow people to afford their healthcare.”
“We got the opposite. You know, they called it the Affordable Care Act, but Obamacare turned out to be anything but affordable. It turned out to be that it’s much more expensive, particularly for young people,” he said. “If Republicans were in charge, we’d do the opposite.”
Of Obama’s executive delays and changes, Paul noted, “We write laws, and he’s just deciding willy-nilly if he likes it, he enforces it, if he doesn’t, he won’t enforce it. And we really think he needs to be chastened, rebuked and told that he needs to obey the Constitution.”
On his CPAC straw poll win, Paul said “what it tells you is that young people live in a digital age.”
“They don’t want the government looking at what books they read or what magazines they read or at their phone records without a warrant and without suspicion,” he said. “So young people believe in privacy, and the president’s gone astray on this. I think the young people instead of voting Democrat next time may well come to the Republican side, because we’re gonna be the party that defends privacy.”
Paul speaks Tuesday at UC Berkeley. “And we’re gonna be there and we’re gonna take them the message of privacy and let ’em know that, look, there are Republicans who are Libertarian leaning, who do believe in protecting privacy. And I think the message will be well received there. But we’ll find out on Tuesday.”
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