Universal Health Care - not good for America

Humor me while I develop my thoughts on the topic of Universal Health Care.

The main questions are:  Is health care an inalienable right that should be provided free to one and all? Or is health care a service for which we should exchange something of value in order to receive?

I believe that any person that has a need of treatment should be treated to the most reasonable ability available.  It is our moral obligation to see that the sick amongst us be taken care of.  God so commanded it.

Notice how I said it is “our” responsibility, not the government's.  It has been proven time and time again that the government just mucks things up with inefficiency, corruption, waste, irresponsibility, and lack of accountability.

I think back to good Dr. Baker in the TV series, Little House on the Prairie.  It makes me long for simpler times.  He didn’t seem to be interested in money, but rather he was portrayed as an altruistic servant of the community.  He was maintained by the citizens of Walnut Grove.  I never saw an exchange of money for his medical treatments, but I recall that Charles Ingalls provided him food.  The citizens probably even built his house.  That is so much more efficient than the government collecting taxes and then paying him a meager wage.

Education and training in the medical field allows people to provide meaningful service to society and society should therefore reward them with status in society and with a comfortable existence.

There is no question that those with the most money get better treatment.  I don’t believe that God is pleased with the disparity between the rich and the poor when it comes to health care and education.  I wish more of the rich would give of their “excess” in meaningful ways to lift up their fellow man, but I want it to come from their hearts, not by the force of law.  I think we should strive for no rich and no poor among us.

Perhaps we value human life too much as I mentioned in a previous blog and we get all bent out of shape regarding fairness, when if we had a more eternal perspective, such issues would be of far less concern.  Society tends to pay people largely what society thinks they are worth.  If the herd needs a little culling because lazy people can’t afford treatment, why not let nature take its course?  Isn’t that awful to think of in that way?

Malpractice lawsuits are too often unjustly large; thus the higher medical costs and insurance rates.  Punitive damages against doctors will eventual kill the medical field unless we change the laws.  If a doctor is found to be negligent then justice should demand restitution.  We need to find a way to distinguish negligence from common human error, mistakes, and accidents.  We need to end the blame games and be more accepting of God’s timetable for our lives.

In conclusion, it should be up to individuals to pay for their own medical insurance and care.  If they cannot, they should look to their families for support, then to their churches and private organizations, and the government should be the last resort.  Such government programs should be locally administered with local tax revenues and the directors of it should be accountable to the local citizenry to mitigate the risk of abuse.  It is our duty to take care of the sick and afflicted, so we need to do it rather than subcontracting it out to the government.