Freedom to choose

While the healthcare debate was raging last week the vice nasty guy said:

Well, it’s — it’s — the very essence of living in a free society is people get to make their own decisions. But the president and I truly believe that if you lower the cost of health insurance, if you give Americans more choices in health insurance, that more Americans will choose, more employers will choose, to have and offer health insurance to their employees and have health insurance for their families.

I note he doesn’t say:
* The purpose of most of the bills offered last week were to take affordable healthcare from the poor so that tax cuts can be given to the rich.
* Lowering the cost of health insurance will leave people with plans that don’t actually cover anything in a medical emergency.
* This is another way to say what Sen. John Cornyn said earlier this month: 22 million people aren’t “losing” health insurance, they’re “choosing” to go without. “People will buy what they value.” He left off the key phrase: “and can afford.”

But back to an important word: Freedom is to choose to go without health insurance because the gov’t rigged the system so you can’t afford it?

That got me thinking I should compare his definition of freedom to my own and to what others have said. After thinking about that for a while more I remembered I had. This is a bit of what I wrote in 2013:

Freedom of good health, to have access to good medical care and prevention services while maintaining my freedom from want.
...
So. Freedom to be me, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and fear, freedom of community, freedom of health, freedom from oppression, freedom of fair elections, freedom of secure housing, freedom of adequate education.

I’m not at all surprised that the vice nasty guy’s freedom to choose (amongst options that are all rotten) is in direct conflict with my freedom of good health. He’s also taking a swing at all my other freedoms.