My banker friends are mostly Republican, conservative, and strong supporters of free markets. Consistent with their principles, those I've talked with are skeptical about mandatory national health insurance and, as a group, opposed to ObamaCare. This is a delicious irony, because banks are among the few artificial persons who already have ObamaCare, or what amounts to the same thing: mandatory insurance coupled with regular physical examinations, prescriptions, and even surgical coverage.
I'm referring, of course, to our system of federal and state regulation of banks, which contains all the major elements that Republicans fear in ObamaCare. Consider:
1. Banks are required to purchase insurance from the federal government to protect their depositors.
2. Banks must obtain and pay for annual examinations into the condition of their health, and don't have a choice of providers.
3. The government may mandate that banks in poor health change their lifestyle by replacing their officers and directors, abstaining from making loans secured by non-nutritive collateral, and strengthening their physical condition with capital-raising exercises.
4. The government can even order ailing banks to submit to surgery and have pieces cut off and discarded or sold.
As banks are people too (see the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision), and have enjoyed ObamaCare since the 1930s, their executives should acknowledge that other people might want the same benefits. While my analogy between banking regulation and ObamaCare isn't perfect, it's pretty good. Isn't the FDIC a glorified death panel? Washington Mutual would say so.