The passing of the new health care bill starts us on a road down a debate of ethics when it comes to making amendments. The health and well-being of this country’s citizens should, without any doubt, be the primary concern of the government. Denying these of anyone would be close to alienating another’s right to a happy life.
A policy that brings about the most happiness within a community should be deemed a correct policy, and the new health care legislation exemplifies this. The public’s pouting might not show this now, but in the next few years, perhaps months, when more of the citizenry receives health coverage, the mood will change. A healthy nation &-&- everyone wants this for the population.
Shifting our gears from pure to practical thought, we see a different side of things. Currently, there are only so many health care professionals that can tend to the population. And from the looks of it, the number of newly trained health care professionals is only slowly progressing. This suggests a backlog in the number of doctors tending to patients.
Furthermore, this would create extensive “rationing” of health care to many patients. Certain European health care systems &-&- overseen by government &-&- cost much less to operate than that of the United States, and this is accomplished precisely through the action of rationing. Some patients are kept in the emergency room for days before being treated.
Further: the debate of costs. There still seems to be stigma about how the government will come up with the money to fund this legislation. Some may call for free market amendments, suggesting that a freer market of insurance is the best way to go. With liberty to trade as each private company wishes, the accruement of capital increases, bringing more money into the nation. The private companies are self-regulated. Granting all control to a single manager creates a bureaucratic maze for regulation and costs, harming the nation as a whole.
Some may say that the free market amendment of the health care bill is unfair to many Americans. Others would argue for more amendment toward a centralized health care system, where government controls costs, taxing those with higher incomes, assessing the health risks of individuals and distributing care based on such statistics. This is extremely socialist, and we all know that American history will not allow such a plan to become an amendment, not when a spirit of capitalism pervades through the American society.
With ethical and economic philosophies seemingly at odds with each other, a concrete solution for how to amend the health care bill remains elusive. We all want everyone to have good health care, but we are divided on how to bring it about. No matter what obstacles we face, our politicians should not grab at the torch and fear being burnt. The courage to debate certain amendments is the first step to amending ethical holes in the current bill.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
