It's a new year with really old themes. Repealing Obamacare is back on the front burner, and Rand Paul is selling it with free ads on Faux News.

Appearing on Greta Van Susteren's show today, Baby Paul gave his prediction for what might happen if they actually repealed Obamacare, asking "What would happen to the American people?" Good question, Greta. More specifically, what would happen to the newly-uninsured American people who had coverage before the Rand Paulites of the world yanked it away from them.

Paul's answer:

We could try freedom for a while. We had it for a long time. That's where you sell something and I agree to buy it because I like it. That's how we operated in most of the rest of the marketplace other than health care.

Now the president has said you can only buy certain types of health care that I approve of and anything I don't approve of, you're not allowed to purchase. We could try freedom. I think it might work. It works everywhere else.

Uh, yeah. Baby Paul must mean that time where some of us had the freedom to be refused over and over again by insurers for pre-existing conditions, I guess. There's some freedom for you. Freedom to die, freedom to be bankrupt, freedom to never work again.

Yay freedom.

The next exchange was a follow-up crafted to give Rand Paul maximum ability to slime people who get insurance subsidies. This question and answer was intentionally disingenous, since Republicans loved high-deductible policies until they became part of the ACA menu with some subsidies for people who need lower deductibles most.

VAN SUSTEREN: But wouldn't we go back to a situation where some people simply couldn't afford health care with that because right now we have the healthier, more affluent people subsidizing the less healthy and less affluent. Then they would end up back at the hospitals and the hospitals would be providing free care again and now we've got the financial burden back on the hospitals. So we're back to square one.

PAUL: The interesting thing is they still do that because even under Obamacare, there's some people who get subsidized insurance, but the subsidized insurance has a $6000 deductible and so what do you think those people do with that $6000 deductible? They probably still are a non-payer.

Got that, kids? The fact that the deductible is as high as $6,000 makes anyone with a bronze policy a big fat moocher. Because freedom means no more mooching. It also means no more access to health insurance, but that's not a big deal for Baby Paul, since he's got his and screw the rest of us.

My retort comes courtesy of the LA Times. This inspiring story of a woman diagnosed with cancer whose insurance wouldn't cover her chemotherapy until the ACA kicked in. She is alive and in full remission, thanks to her shiny new Obamacare plan. Here's what she says to Rand and the rest:

Sitting on her living room couch with her dog, Gray says she is somewhat bewildered by the controversy that continues to shadow the health law.

"I don't understand why people get so mad.... It's just health insurance," she said, describing conversations with friends and neighbors who say the law should be repealed. "I tell them, 'You have to understand, there are people who need this. I mean really, really need this.'"

Couldn't have said it better myself.