Healthcare - A Birthright?

When you survey the American public, some 80% say they are happy with their health insurance. Yet our President says the system is broke and needs to be fixed and the best way to do this is for the government to run it and for everyone to have health insurance whether they want it or not. This will cost you and me trillions of dollars and most likely significantly reduce the quality of care we currently get, be fraught with fraud and bureaucratic inefficiency, and eventually be bankrupt in a few decades just like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other government run programs since President Roosevelt set us on this idiotic path toward big government.

The premise for this move to government controlled healthcare is the fact that there are some 30-40 million uninsured people in the U.S. However, we never break it down into what makes up this number. How many are illegal immigrants, how many can’t afford it or are chronically unemployed, how many just don’t want it because they are rich, or just think they are young and very healthy, how many are children and why won’t their parents get them covered? Is health insurance a birthright, like equality and freedom, and the pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed in our Constitution?

No one cares if you don’t buy life insurance or auto insurance or home insurance (only your lender). Also, I can’t figure out why everyone must have the same quality of healthcare. Don’t wealthier people have higher quality cars and houses, better food, better education, take better care of themselves?” As a matter of fact, in Socialist and Communist countries, the people in the government are usually the wealthiest and have better services, even though they tout equality for the masses.

What really is healthcare? The statistics say that 80% of the health costs are due to lifestyle choices which can result in obesity, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. Why should those of us who choose to make healthier choices, pay for the health insurance of those who don’t? Obviously, most Americans are willing to pay for health insurance to protect themselves from involuntary or unwanted occurrences, but should we be required to protect others from health risks due to alcoholism, smoking, depression, or even erectile dysfunction? Why can’t we have a system of choice and have the option to select the health coverage we want in order to have premiums we can afford and forgo coverage for trivial or unnecessary procedures? Wouldn’t this be better and cheaper than guaranteeing the same healthcare for everyone?

Let’s face it people, everyone in this country can get professional healthcare whether they have insurance or not. Sure the system should be improved but we don’t have to throw it away and start all over because some people don’t have insurance. Maybe if we thought about things for awhile and studied the problem with qualified and non-political experts, we would come up with something that’s viable and less costly.

We have already seen what rushing into TARP, a new budget, and the stimulus package has done to this economy.