WHAT PAUL RYAN SAID WAS NO ACCIDENT
(updated)

Silly headline at Think Progress:

Paul Ryan Accidentally Reveals The Truth About The GOP's Obamacare Replacement

Here's what Ryan said:

The former GOP vice presidential nominee was asked on Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt" about whether Republicans would keep provisions like requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions, keeping kids on their parents' insurance until they are 26 years old and barring insurance companies from having different rates for those whose jobs include physical labor....

"If you look at these kinds of reforms, where they've been tried before -- say the state of Kentucky, for example -- you basically make it impossible to underwrite insurance," Ryan said, according to an advance transcript. "You dramatically crank up the cost. And you make it hard for people to get affordable health care."

Ryan went on to claim Republicans would work to make health care affordable, but offered no specific ideas to help people in vulnerable groups. So yes, Ryan made clear that reforms of this kind are likely to go.

But I can't believe Ryan "accidentally revealed the truth." I can't believe he said more than he intended to say.

Republicans -- and Ryan in particular -- aren't ashamed of the fact that they reject guaranteed coverage, or reasonably priced insurance for people in high-risk categories. On the contrary, they're quite content with the fact that they leave a lot of people vulnerable.

You have to understand the philosophy of modern conservatism, a key tenet of which is that it's wrong to provide something good to everyone. It goes against the will of God. You see, God wants the less deserving to suffer. In fact, that's how we know who the less deserving are: we can identify them because they're suffering. They're poor. They're unemployed. They've become sick and don't have enough cash or medical coverage to get well. Clearly that's because of something they did in their lives. If we -- the people favored of God -- deign to help them out with our Christian charity, then we're virtuous people, and God loves us. But arranging society so that such people are helped routinely is just a way of ensuring that the sinful and undeserving will be rewarded.

Paul Ryan is addressing his remarks to people who share this worldview. They're called "the Republican base." He knows they agree with him. What he said was directed at them -- and not by accident.

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UPDATE: What the Tea Party Express's Howard Kaloogian said on Rick Scarborough's radio show seems germane here:

I think it's clear that God has a position on many of the things we deem political today, from life to theft to the doctrine of covetousness, which by the way seems to be the promotion of the left. You know, they talk about 'income inequality,' well what is that but covetousness? So how could somebody support that cause if they're biblical believing Christians?