In his latest post about the Anti-Universal Coverage Club, of which I’m a proud member, Michael Cannon quotes Grace-Marie Turner on her reluctance to join:

It’s perception. If people think we’re against having everyone have health insurance coverage, what kind of statement is that?

I’m an admirer of Turner, but her delicacy about “perceptions” is misguided. Indeed, it plays into the hands of the socialized medicine crowd, whose strategy for winning the health care debate includes creating the impression that a government-run, “universal” health care system would be more “caring” than a system based on the free market.

It is the evangelists of government-run health care who should be worried about perceptions. In the end, that is their only weapon. Advocates of free market reform possess a much more powerful weapon: the facts. And the facts clearly indicate that “universal health care” is anything but humane.

The battle over health care reform cannot be won by making nice. The advocates of socialized medicine are perfectly willing to get out the brass knuckles in order to prevail. The good guys (that would be us) will lose this battle if we try to fight it according to the Queensberry Rules.