Well, here goes. I dithered a bit over making this post for a few reasons. Health care is not my favorite issue (yes, I have a favorite issue. Come on, we all do- we all have issues that are more important to us, or that we enjoy debating and talking about more than others. For some people, it is health care. I'm not one of them). There are other issues that are more important to me, and about which I am slightly better informed. Plus, with all the emphasis on health care in the news recently, I've gotten pretty tired of the whole thing. But because it has been such a big issue lately, with so much debate and media coverage, I feel like I should make at least a token post about it. So here goes- the obligatory health care post. Don't get used to it.
Yesterday, my local newspaper ran an article on the controversy surrounding the "public option" in health care. The article itself was only mildly interesting, but what really arrested me when reading it was one of the opening sentences: "Both parties in Congress agree on about 80 percent of the health-care agenda--such as getting rid of exclusions for pre-existing conditions and requiring individuals to buy insurance while subsidies to people who can't afford it."
Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop right there. Hold on a minute. If that sentence doesn't wake you up and scare the bajeebers out of you, something is seriously wrong. Let's focus on the key point, shall we? It's the part where Congress agrees on "requiring individuals to buy insurance." I don't know about you, but after that little gem right there, the rest of the article really didn't matter that much to me. I was too concerned about the fact that, apparently, Congress feels it's okay to require me to buy health insurance. If this is indeed the case, we should all be worried.
Why? Because, simply put, aside from having me pay taxes (and even then, there is plenty of room for debate about which taxes are legitimate and how much the government has a right to tax me), Washington has no right to tell me how to spend my money--but that is precisely what they are doing if they pass a bill requiring me to buy health insurance, regardless of whether I want to or not. What this amounts to is nothing more nor less than big government once again thinking it knows what is best for me, and attempting to force me to make what it thinks is a smart decision to protect me from what it perceives as being my own bad choices.
Except that the government doesn't have that right or that authority. The bottom line is, my income is precisely that- my income. If I want to spend every last penny of my paycheck on lottery tickets and bubblegum cigars, that is my choice and my right, and the government has no right to tell me to do otherwise. If the government suddenly requires me to purchase insurance, however, it is dictating to me how I must spend a portion of my income, even if I have already made the decision that I am willing to forgo insurance in favor of something else. And there are plenty of people who do just that. Yes, it's true what supporters of health care reform say when they quote the statistic about millions of Americans lacking health insurance. What they often omit, however, is that fact that roughly half of these uninsured Americans are uninsured by choice. Your typical uninsured American is not the sob story from the ads: the single mom/low income family with seven children all suffering from leukemia which could easily be cured if only the insurance companies weren't so evil, and they could afford to take said kids to the doctor. Your typical uninsured American is just as likely- if not more so- to be a young, healthy, single individual, who lacks the responsibilities of family and kids, and has made a conscious and rational decision to forgo purchasing health insurance in order to have more money to spend on other things, whether it be partying, frequent dining out, expensive clothes, or the very latest in electronic gadgets (for anyone who's interested, there's a great video on this here). And as I said before, that is their right. For Congress to come in and demand that these people buy health insurance represents a gross intrusion of government into private life. The government has no right to tell me how to spend my money or what decisions I should make regarding my health care. If I choose to forgo health insurance, that is my right. If I choose to eat McDonald's three times a day and never touch vegetables, that is my choice. Those are both extremely personal decisions, and areas where the government has no business. After all, what's next? Will I be required to buy a certain number of fruits, vegetables, and Lean Cuisine every month to help protect me from obesity?
Never mind the "public option," the pre-existing conditions clauses, and all the rest. Let's focus instead on the underlying philosophy here- the idea that the government has the right to control how you spend your money and what decisions you make as regards your health. That's what we should really be worried about.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment