It's true, too, that if you couldn't afford health insurance, you would have the right to get it free. Everyone else would have the right to pay for you -- except Nebraskans, who are blessed with a senator who can extract goodies from a feeble majority leader while wielding no more than an imaginary moral misgiving.
You also would have the right to live under the guidance of a newly consequential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which -- as Kevin Patrick, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, explained to The Washington Post -- "has been one of the crown jewels of evidence-based neutrality. It's like the Switzerland of thought on evidence-based medicine. I worry about it being politicized."
The task force's political recommendations would define what basic health insurance coverage meant for millions. On mammograms. On colonoscopies. On wellness. On vaccines. On preventive care. On everything.
The state-based insurance exchanges in which consumers (those who would be without insurance once their employers dropped them) would have the right to pick from a handful of government-authorized insurance plans would be guided by this task force.
You call it rationing? They call it freedom.
You call it coercion with no cost benefit to speak of? Hey, in Washington, that's called a right.