“Government Run Health Care” is a Scare Tactic
August 4th, 2009
A new Facebook poll asks its users if they want a Government run healthcare system. Overwhelmingly, the results say No.
And I agree, who wants our government to completely run health care? About the only thing our federal government does well is spend our money and wage war.
What I don’t understand is that none of the viable health care reform proposals (on either side of the political aisle) have the government actually running health care, i.e., the so-called “single payer system” similar to the U.K. Even the most liberal of the reform plans now under serious consideration involve only a government run insurance pool that supplements private insurance.
The term “government run healthcare” is a scare tactic by opponents who want to ensure that we continue to do nothing. Which our Congress is really good at, as they’ve ignored this problem for decades.
But we must do something. I have too many friends with families and no health insurance because they have pre-existing health conditions, work for small companies, or are unemployed. We all end paying for them anyway — through indigent care and skyrocketing health care costs — so why not figure out how to cover them legitimately?
The duty of the government is to provide essential services to its citizens that the citizens or private enterprise cannot adequately provide themselves. Services such as military, police, fire, social security, indigent welfare, etc. Given there are still millions of Americans without health insurance, and those lucky enough to have good health insurance face continually skyrocketing costs, it’s obvious that private enterprise cannot do this job alone.
