Earlier today, I spoke with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) about ObamaCare and efforts on the Hill to find enough votes to push it out of Congress. Ryan wrote a separate health-care reform bill that was suppressed by the Democrats in the House, one that would have used free-market reforms to actually lower costs and allow for greater freedom of choice for Americans. Ryan asserts that the real ambition behind ObamaCare is not to improve health care or lower its costs, but to make Americans a dependent class and radically change the relationship between a free people and the government that is supposed to serve them, rather than the other way around:

In support of Ryan’s assertion, note that the federal government will be paying subsidies to over 60% of Americans as part of the ObamaCare system. That makes for a very, very large dependent class, one that will start voting to protect its welfare payments rather than challenge the power of the federal nannies that provide it. It’s an entree into autocracy, and eventually serfdom.

Ryan will speak at length tonight at the Washington Court Hotel at 6 pm on this subject. In the interview, I mistakenly say that he will appear at Hillsdale College; the speech is being sponsored by Hillsdale. If you can make it, you won’t regret it.