David Frum* has been fired by the American Enterprise Institute; one has to assume that this is a response to his outspokenness about the Republican failure on health reform.

In discussing the Frum firing, Bruce Bartlett asserts that AEI has muzzled its health-care experts, because the truth is that they agree with a lot of what Obama is proposing. I find this quite believable; back in 2003 Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation, which is supposedly harder-right than AEI, proposed a health care reform consisting of … drumroll … an individual mandate coupled with subsidies to make insurance affordable. In short, Obamacare.

I was struck, by the way, by Butler’s recommendation that we

Provide support to people to obtain health care based on their need, not where they happen to work, or their eligibility for welfare, or their military record, or their age.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?

*I’m informed, by family members, that Frum is a distant cousin of yours truly.