Here piggy piggy

What do you do when you have a pig that’s so big, he can’t walk? You either:
A-slaughter him, B-put him on a diet, or C-keep feeding him, which is more or less what the health care debate boils down to – the pig representing the current state of our healthcare system. Let’s discuss in a non-partisan way some points about the health care debate that everyone seems to agree upon.
1: The USA spends an inordinate amount of it’s GDP on health care, more than any other nation.
2: Our current healthcare system is radically unfair. –That’s not to say that other healthcare models wouldn’t be more unfair.

First, we have the people who want to ‘kill the pig’.
Some argue that we need a large-scale, govt-run insurance company. The so-called “public option”, which everyone would be able to buy into, and for which the poor would pay less than the rich. This government-run insurer would then be able to negotiate lower costs for procedures, and cut down on the number of procedures used.
Although the “public option” wouldn’t eliminate private insurers, private insurers still HATE the prospect, because they know the government-run company will be larger, and therefore more able to leverage lower prices – making the public option less expensive, and making people less inclined to buy private insurance.

Second, we have those who want to ‘put the pig on a diet’.
These people advocate the creation of some sort of non-profit insurance companies that will compete with private insurance. Because they are non-profit companies, they will not be incentivised to work for shareholders (like for-profit insurers), but instead work for the patients they represent. The downside of the “put the pig on a diet” plan is that you still end up with tens of millions of people with no insurance whatsoever.

Then, you have the people who don’t want healthcare system overhaul. They want to ‘keep feeding the pig’. These people are happy with the current state of their healthcare, and probably don’t want to pay for people who make stupid decisions (gang-bangers with gunshot wounds, alcoholics, smokers, the obese). On some level I can empathize with this. At the OC fair a few years ago, I remember seeing a vendor selling chocolate-covered bacon. I don’t want to be on the financial hook for people that eat chocolate-covered bacon.

Although many people are screaming that they don’t want socialism, what they don’t realize is that many aspects of our government have already been socialist for some time. We share the cost of school, roads, and the military, to name a few. Also, we already have socialized medicine, just an outrageously bloated and inefficient form of it. At most hospitals, ANYONE can go to receive treatment. That treatment may bankrupt you, and it may be of poor quality, but nobody is refused if they cannot pay upfront. I would argue that it is the very inefficiency of our current system that makes medical care so much more expensive than it needs to be.

Is healthcare a privilege, or is it a right? If it is a privilege (even if it’s a very desirable privilege, like indoor plumbing), then we need to STOP giving healthcare of any kind to people who cannot afford to pay for it in advance.

But I think the reason that hospitals continue to treat people who are uninsured is that we, the people, don’t believe that healthcare is a privilege. We believe that it is a right. And if it is a right - like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - then it is the responsibility of our government to protect that right.