Yesterday, Yahoo News featured a story about the health policy views of former President Bush's 28-year-old daughter Barbara. The sub-headline read, "Bush daughter veers away from the GOP with her views on healthcare."

"Sweet," one might have thought. "A Bush twin has come out in favor of free markets and the long-term abolition of big-government entitlement programs that Republicans love to defend, such as Medicare."

Wrong. It turns out that the way in which she "departs" from the GOP's basic acceptance of a government involvement in healthcare and retirement planning is to advocate for more of it, not less. When asked by reporter Chris Wallace whether she supports President Obama's healthcare reform plan, she responded: "I guess I'm glad that the bill was passed." She expounded: "Why do people with money have good healthcare and why do people who live on lower salaries not have good healthcare? Health should be a right for everyone."

Contrary to common perception, Republicans and Democrats are not at opposite ends of the spectrum on healthcare. Both parties accept the basic tenet that society must mobilize to provide healthcare for those who cannot or will not provide for themselves. This is not unexpected; it is the natural consequence of the fact that both parties accept altruism (i.e. self-sacrifice) as the foundation of their ethical beliefs.

According to altruism, "spreading the health" is a moral obligation. And what if we have to invent artificial rights and tell doctors who to treat and how much they can charge? So be it. The goal of altruism is not to create widespread prosperity; it is to achieve an egalitarian world in which there is "health equity."² At what level that equalization occurs is unimportant, as long as there is less disparity than today.

To make a real departure from the position shared by the Democrats and Republicans, the Bush daughter would have to reject the idea of brother-as-keeper and defend each individual's own right to life, liberty, and property. This is territory occupied by no major political party today. Until one group or the other makes a dramatic shift, let us be spared the notion that the two parties are fundamentally at odds.

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¹ "Bush women run afoul of GOP orthodoxy" Yahoo News, June 14, 2010

² Fittingly, Barbara Bush is the president of Global Health Corps, an organization that fights not for the export of modern medicine to developing countries—which would be perfectly laudable—but rather "to build a movement for health equity" as a means to remedy social inequities that the groups considers "unjust."

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