Despite all his rhetoric and the applause from his libertarian base, Sen. Rand Paul is just another top-down, autocratic, big-government Republican. (Photo: Jeff Malet/maletphoto.com)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal libertarians in Congress, is reportedly headed to Canada later this year to receive hernia surgery and it's pretty clear that a lot people on Monday are going to be calling him out for this.

While building a career on promoting the libertarian myth of what Paul and others like to call the "free market," the "irony of it" was just too rich that he would travel to Canada, which enjoys a socialized, single-payer healthcare system, to have the procedure performed.

According to the Louisville Courier Journal:

He is scheduled to have the outpatient operation at the privately administered Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario during the week of Jan. 21, according to documents from Paul's civil lawsuit against Boucher filed in Warren Circuit Court.

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Shouldice Hernia Hospital markets itself as "the global leader in non-mesh hernia repair," according to the clinic's website. [NB: This is a perfectly supportable claim by Shouldice - it is indeed the world leader in this type of herniorrhaphy - prh, ed.]

While Shouldice Hernia Hospital is privately owned — like many Canadian hospitals — it receives a majority of its funding from the Ontario government and accepts the Ontario’s Hospital Insurance Plan.