Health Care and the 'Predator State'

By THOMAS FRANK
WSJ

In June 2008, I used this space to call on then-Sen. Barack Obama to add economist James K. Galbraith's book, "The Predator State," to his reading list. As an account of the capture of government by private interests, I thought it would make a far more useful guide to contemporary political economy than the market-glorifying texts that were still in fashion in those days.

I don't know if Mr. Obama ever took my advice.

But Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley apparently did. During a debate last week over two Democratic proposals for a health-care bill featuring a "public option"—a government-run alternative to private health insurance—the senator announced he opposed the idea because, as he put it, "Government is not a fair competitor. . . . It's a predator."

The word "predator" seems to have become something of a Republican talking point. Mr. Grassley's colleague from South Dakota, John Thune, went on the record in July to warn that, when government goes into business, it "becomes not a competitor but a predator."

Have these two august men of the right secretly become fans of Mr. Galbraith, one of our leading liberal economists?

(Original here.)