The Great Libertarian Gamble

You really should read a post by Brad DeLong in his Grasping Reality with Both Hands blog that outlines the irony of Ron Paul talking about the "freedom" to have medical care. It ends up that his 2008 campaign manager died destitute from pneumonia because he didn't have medical insurance!

Back in 2008, Kent Snyder — Paul's former campaign chairman — died of complications from pneumonia. Like the man in Blitzer's example, the 49-year-old Snyder was relatively young and seemingly healthy[1] when the illness struck. He was also uninsured. When he died on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for the presidency, his hospital costs amounted to $400,000. The bill was handed to Snyder's surviving mother, who was incapable of paying. Friends launched a website to solicit donations….

After Snyder's death, Paul posted a message to the website for his Campaign for Liberty — a pre-Tea Party organization which served Paul as both presidential marketing tool and platform to promote his non-interventionist, free market ideals. He wrote:

Like so many in our movement, Kent sacrificed much for the cause of liberty. Kent poured every ounce of his being into our fight for freedom. He will always hold a place in my heart and in the hearts of my family.

And that, friends, is what freedom is really all about.

It is good to see that Ron Paul exercised his "freedom" to let his campaign manager die in debt. No obligations. The libertarians only contract between each other and obviously there was no clause in their deal to cover medical emergencies. So the campaign manager got to exercise his "freedom" to die from pneumonia.