Universal Health Care or Privatized?
I spent last weekend celebrating a wedding with many of my old college friends. This is a great group of guys who have stayed close well after our college years (I'm 35 yrs old now). Our biggest debate of the weekend was politics. Specifically, we debated (they yelled at me) about healthcare.
Now to preface this, I'm very liberal on many social issues and conservative financially. Capitalism is wonderful and often leads to peak efficiency. Individuals and companies are incentived to grow and prosper. Now on the other hand, most of my friends are conservative both socially and financially. The main difference is that I believe everyone in our country should be ENTITLED to:
1) Healthcare
2) Housing (a basic roof and nothing more)
3) Food (it doesnt have to taste good, just do the job to survive)
4) ACCESS to education (we can't force feed you, you need to want it)
5) Equal opportunities (we need to strictly enforce this)
Healthcare was the big debate. Let's do a quick summary.
Universal Health Care PROS: Everyone will be covered and there will be no gray area, nobody falls through the cracks. It's not all about $ and without our health we have nothing.
Universal Healthcare Cons: Government is extremely inefficient and ruins anything it controls, long lines for service that you have little say about, Drs. shouldn't be limited on salary, if you take the profit out of healthcare then drug companies have no incentive to research new drugs that help mankind (sad but very true), profit drives medical community and Drs. to offer better service (incentive), when you sum it up it's just the taxpayer picking up the universal healthcare tab with HUGE INCREASE IN TAXES while the gov infringes on capitalism and tells me they can handle my money better than i do.
See on paper it seems to clearly favor private healthcare. There must be a better answer. Overall, I love capitalism and private enterprise. I think our system is great for the rich, poor and most of the middle class. I still cant help feeling empathy for the working poor (middle class) that get "unlucky" with health issues and gets CRUSHED by the system.
Whats the answer to save this unfortunate group? Maybe set a cap on medical bills you are responsible for if you have adequate coverage? Force the insurance companies to cover ALL MEDICAL RELATED COSTS and stop denying claims? Offer affordable guarenteed health policies where everyone has access to education? Is it fair that a person BORN WITH type 1 diabetes has to pay through his teeth for coverage for his entire life? I'm feel for people that were dealt a tough hand and get crushed by the system as a result.
Someone please give me suggestions and help me see this more clearly.
Craig