Contrary to right-wing critiques, whether because they are libertarian absolutists or just cynical political cheap shots, liberals do believe in free markets as an expression of individual liberty. But they temper it with some regulation and restriction because they believe full-on free markets lead to great disparities of wealth, monopolies, and civil strife, which ends up harming liberty in a practical sense.matedog wrote: ↑08 Aug 2020, 9:43amI’m still unclear about liberals faith in the free market. I assumed Obama/bidencare would be a liberal ideal as it is rooted in the free market vs sanders/warren leftist (synonymous with socialist?) government run healthcare. But your post above seems to suggest otherwise.
Perhaps think of it this way: libertarians don't worry about the result, for as long as the minimal rules are followed, the end must be just; liberals do think of the practical implications of minimal rules versus some state regulation/interference, seeking for some kind of balance between liberty and disparities that harms meaningful (not just abstract) liberty.
So Obamacare is a sensible modern liberal application of this principle. It avoids an absolutist free market position on healthcare—each person has to obtain health insurance based on the offer of the seller and the buyer's means and preferences, and if the two can't strike a deal, so be it—in favour of curbing that free market so that more people are able to participate, thus avoiding a situation where many without health insurance, which they believe harms a free society as a whole. Some liberty has to be compromised to preserve the larger application.
edit: A non-liberal position, socialist or even fascist, would say that healthcare is not an area of human existence subject to markets, regulated or otherwise; it is a basic human right. So they remove it from the market category altogether.