Universal Healthcare

Given the alternative of allowing uninsured accident victims to bleed to death, support for universal healthcare is nearly unanimous.

The only real issues concern what gets covered and how to pay for it.

Some believe it is wrong to deny any treatment, based on the patient's inability to pay.

There are advantages to having money. Rich people live in the best houses, drive the best cars, wear the best clothes. If they also get the best healthcare, I see no injustice in that.

We, as a society, must decide what we are willing to pay for. Perhaps we will pay for certain life saving procedures, while refusing to pay for others, because the prognosis isn't good enough, or because it is simply too expensive. Yes, that does mean pulling the plug on Grandma.

What about breast augmentation? What if the person who wants it is a man? What about hair weaves? What if a convicted sex offender requests treatment for erectile disfunction? What if a psychiatrist determines it to be essential to the person's self esteem? What if we're talking about reconstructive surgery for an accident victim?

I am very much opposed to characterizing healthcare as a right, because that means everything must be covered. I would like to see a compassionate system, but one that allows us to say no.

What should we cover? Without getting into specifics, let's start out with a minimal system that doesn't cover anything that is the least bit controversial. Let's err in favor of covering too little, rather than too much.

To those conservatives who consider even that to be a dangerous precedent, I would point out that we had universal healthcare, well before President Obama came along. Hospitals could not legally turn away indigent patients. But if you had insurance, they might tack $100 onto your bill every time a nurse gave you an aspirin.

Rather than proposing a new entitlement, I am merely suggesting that there might be a better way of paying for the one we already had. I just think funding it out of the general revenue is more equitable than a tax on sick people, which is essentially what we had before.

Whatever is provided to those who are unable to pay should also be provided, free of charge, to those who do not wish to pay. The healthcare that is provided to the poor free of charge might wipe out your savings and launch you into bankruptcy if you have a decent income, even if you are insured. Let's put an end to that, and adopt the approach that has already been applied to the public libraries.

I think the first thing we ought to do is repeal the Affordable Care Act. Public libraries are one thing. But this legislation is tantamount to allowing the government to take over all the bookstores.

I see no legitimate role for insurance companies to play in providing universal healthcare. If you want something beyond the basic healthcare that is provided to everyone, you pay for it, possibly with the help of an insurance policy. Rather than a necessity, insurance ought to be a luxury, for those who can afford it.