FRED THOMPSON: THE ONE-MAN CONSPIRACY TO KEEP YOU POOR AND STUPID

How much ignorance can Fred Thompson squeeze into his new 88-second video? A lot:

I understand Hillary Clinton has just acknowledged that her new health care plan could require somebody to actually prove they’ve got insurance before they can get a job....

Which (as Joe Klein noted yesterday) is a Drudge-fueled distortion of what she's actually saying:

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview -- like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

Back to Fred:

You know, a job -- the thing that would help you get health care. That kind of mindset is that the government knows best and if you don’t agree, then you’re just going to have to pay for it, one way or the other....

Never mind the fact that the whole point of the plan is that you wouldn't need a job to get health care and would get help if you couldn't afford it:

A Clinton adviser compares the plan's "individual mandate" -- which requires everyone to have health insurance -- to current rules in most states that require all drivers to purchase auto insurance, according to The Associated Press.

In her plan, Clinton said families would receive tax credits to help pay for coverage. The tax credit would be designed to limit the premiums to a percentage of a family's income.

Federal subsidies would be provided for those who are not able to afford insurance...

Fred:

The best way to improve the best health care in the world, which is what we’ve got right here in the United States, is to expand choice, not punishment.

To some Democrats, choice to them is like a cross is to a vampire -- they don’t like to see it coming down the road....

Choice? From the Clinton campaign's description of the plan (PDF):

The American Health Choices Plan gives Americans the choice to preserve their existing coverage, while offering new choices to those with insurance, to the 47 million people in the United States without insurance, and the tens of millions more at risk of losing coverage....

Americans can keep their existing coverage or access the same menu of quality private insurance options that their Members of Congress receive through a new Health Choices Menu.... In addition to the broad array of private options that Americans can choose from, they will be offered the choice of a public plan option similar to Medicare....

Fred:

Hillary says, don’t worry about it -- the punishment -- because the exact punitive measures they’d come up with would be worked out by congress. That’s a thought scary enough to make you sick.

I guess that means that in a Thompson administration there'll be no laws whatsoever passed by Congress -- Congress is scary!

All laws will be written by Fred and a bunch of his whittlin' buddies sittin' around the cracker barrel havin' a chaw.

****

I should point out that I'm not endorsing the Clinton plan -- I haven't made up my mind about it. Frankly, I don't think I'll ever really have to -- I'm fully convinced that universal coverage is something I'll never see in my lifetime, because big-business treachery and effective GOP deployment of scare words will always shoot it down.