Ron Paul: End wars to fund health care

[silverhawks]

Wondered what everyone thought of this? Am I mistaken or is Ron Paul all of a sudden saying that a certain amount of socialism is ok as long as we're non-interventionists?

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/22/ron-paul-cut-overseas-spending-to-pay-for-health-care/

House Rep. Ron Paul may be America’s most famous libertarian these days, but he’s making a surprising concession to progressives when it comes to the debate about public health care.

Though the house representative from the 14th District of Texas still insists that government should get out of the health care trade altogether, he told CNN’s Kiran Chetry on Wednesday that “you don’t want to cut under these [economic] conditions medical care from poor people who have been dependent, or the elderly.

“Even though I have my ideal system I would like to see, with the government out completely — because that would be a much better system — that’s not going to happen. I’m realistic.”

But, the House rep said, “one thing we shouldn’t do is pay for it with money out of thin air,” referring to the federal government’s ballooning deficit.

“So what i would do in a transition … is cut spending somewhere and take care of the people we’re talking about.”

And to finance health reform, Paul would like to see the US end its overseas military engagements. “I would cut from overseas spending, I would cut from these trillions and trillions of dollars that we have spent over the years and bring our troops home so that we can finance it [health care].”

Paul said that President Obama’s decision to cancel the F-22 fighter jet program was “a first very very minor step … and I applaud Obama for that. But we don’t need one [defense project] removed, we need to change our foreign policy, then we could afford the health care that is necessary to tide us over until we come to our senses and believe that freedom can deliver medical care much better than a bureaucracy.”

I see the wisdom in essentially calling out the Obama administration on why they don't end the illegal wars in the Middle East in order to benefit American citizens, but I can also see this scenario not actually changing the fact we will be taxed through the nose for universal healthcare?

Sorry if I'm missing something here.

 

[MRoCkEd]

He meant to pay for the people who are so dependent on the government system while working to transition everyone else out of it.