The health care debate has been an unseemly exercise in political positioning, special interest lobbying, horse-trading and near bribery. Health care is the fastest growing sector of the American economy, so discussions naturally stimulate anxiety, anger and confusion.
I suggest that in order to cut though the current crush of opinion, let’s examine health care from the very beginning: birth. (Well, that’s not exactly true – before birth is gestation – but later for that). We are all born and come into the world defenseless and in need of protection, a simple fact every mother understands. Who among us would fail to protect a helpless infant? This consideration is where an honest healthcare discussion starts. Protecting children is instinctual; can we agree that every child deserves health care, even if their family cannot afford it?
Does this instinct to protect others fade and if so, why? Are such feelings based on perceived levels of helplessness or matters of age? Do the elderly, handicapped and disabled deserve care? How do we determine lesser qualifications? Human beings are vulnerable to a wide variety of physical and emotional ills, and this is what health care is meant to address. The point is that when people suffer our natural, compassionate response as human beings is to try to alleviate it. Setting aside economics, providing universal health care is the naturally compassionate choice.
In the end death comes to us all, and comforting the dying is something we want for others, friends, loved ones and also ourselves. Here again, such care is a natural part of what makes us fully human. Thus, viewed from the perspective of basic compassion, it’s clear that all people deserve health care under all conditions and all stages of life.
But let’s examine health care from a different perspective: simple common sense. Bacteria and viruses are equal opportunity infectors; they do not discriminate between people based upon race, creed, color or income. Common sense dictates that promoting health and the eradication of preventable disease among all populations of people benefits everyone. If you are ill and receive no care, your illness will spread to others, and eventually to me. To ignore illness and disease is illogical from either individual or economic standpoints. Economically, the loss of productivity due to uncontained or untreated illness compared to the cost of providing free universal health is far greater. Investing in health simply insures a more healthy economy.
So who would suffer under free universal health care? Certainly not the public or the health care professionals, nor the hospitals, nurses or home-care providers; currently, one-in-seven U.S. jobs are in health care, and as the American population ages more jobs will be created. Let us be clear; the ones who will suffer will be the health insurance companies and their shareholders. But, I ask, what business is without risk? Throughout the evolution of our economy, various business sectors have undergone change. Steam engines were replaced by diesel engines, carriages by autos, propeller aircraft by jet planes, gas guzzlers by hybrids; this is simply the evolving nature of economics. Private health insurance companies are next.
Thus it is that during the 21st century, the wasteful and non-sustainable American model of profit-driven health care should and will naturally come to a well-deserved end.
