As I hear more and more about the topic of health care reform, this video I came across a while back comes to mind. It cuts through the bull. The political version of the state of health care and the real version are not the same. The huge leap of progress is a matter of facing the truth: the problem is not as the politicians make it out to be.
Key points:
- The image of a health insurance problem consisting mostly of single moms and seniors who can’t afford health insurance is fictional
- Most uninsured people don’t have kids and are young and healthy adults
- The majority of the uninsured could already get health insurance if they wanted it
- 11 million Americans already qualify for existing health care programs, but choose not to sign up for them
The underlying problem is a matter of the choices of Americans. Millions of Americans are choosing to not get health insurance. Is it the government’s job to force them to get some?
The fact that we are the most obese nation in the world tells me that there are plenty of Americans who will choose things that are bad for them. If the government is going to force Americans to have health insurance, why not force them to eat a salad? Or why not criminalize the consumption of over 2000 calories per day?
This line of thinking that the government should force people to do what it thinks is good for them is ludicrous.
“Politicians aren’t in the business of telling us what we need to hear. They’re in the business of telling us what we want to hear,” says Dr. Glen Whitman, an economist at California State University, Northridge. “You’re not going to get as many votes telling people, ‘You need to change your life. You need to fix your problems on your own,’ as you’re going to get saying to people, ‘We’re going to solve all your problems for you.'”
