I had a doctor friend one time who told me about how much his practice was supported by the old ladies who would fill their days by going from doctor to doctor in the area with the same non problems. A form of social work for him but very costly for the rest of us. So I see this headline, Reform Health Cover or Collapse, which remarkably is about Australian, and think of him and of how expensive health care has become everywhere.

But there is nowhere that collapse may be more just around the corner than in the US. Watching the “health care” debate from this relatively safe distance is one more example of the great disaster that socialism in all its forms brings with it. But the debate in the US is remarkable for the lack of good will, specially if I may say so, on the side of the Democrats. The president’s no-compromise-on-anything attitude has brought on a train wreck.

There is partisanship and then there is partisanship but then there is the indefensible. I don’t think you can watch the defenders of the insane Affordable Care Act in the US without really appreciating just how deep the divide is, but it’s not a divide over good policy but has been sheer Democrat stubborness in not taking on board a single Republican suggestion during the entire period since the process began. James Taranto has a go at the kinds of defence of the now indefensible we see with a discussion of the various attempts to justify – not apologise for but justify – the actual harm being caused.

Taranto has, as one example, a discussion on why men are being forced to buy maternity care from which they had been previously exempt. Not the only anomaly. People are being kicked off their previous plans because they do not include a host of mandated forms of coverage that constitute the legislated bare minimum but male maternity coverage is pretty clear cut. So Kathleen Sebelius, the Health Secretary, has been defending these mandates in Congress where she pointed out that men often have wives who need maternity coverage. Taranto goes on:

Sebelius’s point is actually a reasonable one, as far as it goes: A male policyholder can benefit from maternity coverage if his plan covers his wife as well as him. But the exchange reveals two other ObamaCare oddities.

First, it’s not only men who are forced to buy maternity coverage they are physically incapable of using. So are women in the stage of life between childbearing age and Medicare eligibility.

Second, under-30s are exempt. That’s right, the geniuses who wrote ObamaCare are forcing everyone to buy maternity care except the age cohort that includes women at peak fertility.

Geniuses every one.