Vito: Health Care Mandate=Socialism

Idaho Rep. Vito Barbieri declared, “This health care mandate is not good for the nation. It’s socialism. … A socialist America is a broken America.” Speaking on a panel about a proposed state health insurance exchange at the AP Legislative Preview today, Barbieri said, “It’s a fundamental ideological principle: Can bureaucracy help deliver health care, let alone set costs?” He said he thinks it can’t. “A bureaucracy will, a it grows, propose more rules, more regulations, they will use the rules of course to increase their power over time and they will devour competition, which is what a bureaucracy does,” Barbieri declared. “Rules and regulations are the means of achieving these goals, and it will be used - that’s what a bureaucracy does”/ Betsy Russell , Eye On Boise. More here.

Also from Eye on Boise today:

• Legislative leaders from both parties favor ethics reforms
• Otter on endowment investments: ‘These are the assets we have’
• Otter: Idaho could lose $300M in Medicaid funds if no insurance exchange
• Barbieri leaning against bringing up new nullification bill this year
• Cig tax hike ‘single most effective way to stop youths from smoking’
• On playing politics

Question: Do you agree with Rep. Vito Barbieri that the health care mandate is socialism?