Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 97 of Matthew Hennessey’s superb 2022 book, Visible Hand:

Those who promise “free” college, “free” health care, and all manner of other “free” goods often have to work hard to obscure the obvious caveats, the most important of which is that someone will pay, just usually not the person on the receiving end of the allegedly free things. Free lunches, as nice as they sound, aren’t really “free,” not in the sense that butterflies are free. Someone always pays. But a more important reality to bear in mind is that price is only one way of rationing scarce goods. There are other ways. In societies that purport to offer “free” health care, people often have to wait for absurdly long periods of time for doctor’s appointments and “nonessential” procedures. You can call it free if you like, but you pay with money or you pay with time.