Universal Health Care?
There is an old saying, be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
We have an outstanding health care system that is loaded with problems. Many of us are getting the best of care, and living longer, more productive lives because of it, but others aren't able to access the system and receive little to no benefit from it. Collectively we spend too much on health care, and most agree that the system is not very efficient financially.
Is universal health care (UHC), which the Democratic candidates are all endorsing in one form or another, the answer, or will it simply make a bad system worse. Surely some deserving people would benefit, but I worry that UHC takes us further down the road where more people don't feel responsible for their own health. I don't want my tax dollars being spent treating someone for diabetes who lived on Coke and candy bars (junk food) for the first half of their lives. And I don't want to pay for lung cancer treatments for someone who smoked all their adult lives. (Yes, I know that not everyone who gets cancer is a smoker, and that some smokers don't get cancer. But the relationship has been proven.)
If you believe in UHC, and worry even a little about the issue of runaway costs, then that would seem to lead to the situation where the government could (and even should) start to more extensively regulate our health-related behaviors. It might rightly decide to make smoking illegal, and that you can't have more than one small Coke a day. It might decide that if you have a high cholesterol problem you must eat oatmeal for breakfast. It might decide that you must exercise at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week, and that you must eat an adequate portion of fruit and vegetables every day.
Now I think all that would be great, as I already fit that profile. When faced with the decision to start taking a cholesterol-reducing drug which would have been mostly paid for by my insurance company, I opted for diet change (inclcuding the oatmeal) instead. Good for my health, good for my insurance company.
Had I not been willing to make that decision on my own, should I have been forced into it, knowing that others would have to pay for the medicine I would have been taking because I wasn't willing to make a lifestyle change? If we adopt UHC, I think the answer is yes.
Republicans will have a field day with that policy, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.
