Concept of universal health care
relic from Communism

Aaron Sakulich 

Issue date:  5/14/04 Section: Ed-Op

http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2004/05/14/EdOp/
Concept.Of.Universal.Health.Care.Relic.From.Communism-681215.shtml

 

Media Credit: The Triangle

 Universal health care is one of the worst ideas of all time. 

 

 Universal health care is a system by which tax money is used to give health care for everyone who doesn't have it via a job or some other means. To put it in more realistic terms, it means that hardworking people who pay taxes are required to pay for a huge number of irresponsible people, a huge number of vain or hypochondriac people and a small handful of people who genuinely need help.

Universal health care does nothing more than punish reasonable people for the excesses of others. Why should I, a young man who stays in somewhat decent shape, smokes and drinks only in moderation and eats more or less correctly be required to pay the hospital bills for people who are too lazy to exercise, too weak-willed to resist the siren call of a triple whopper with cheese three times a day, too addicted to break their smoking, drinking, or narcotic habits, or too clumsy to prepare a bagel without accidentally amputating a finger?

Obviously, not all medical expenses are accrued through a person being negligent or acting recklessly. Sometimes, fate and nature conspire to visit disease upon people. Bear in mind, however, that according to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2001 there were 193,000 emergency room incidents directly related to cocaine overdoses. 509,000 people were sent to the emergency room for attempted suicides or self-inflicted wounds (30,600 died.) In that same year, 67,100 people were diagnosed with cancer. This also includes preventable cancers, such as lung cancer that is a direct result of tobacco use.  More people are sent to the hospital because of the abuse they give their own bodies than for all other reasons combined. 

 

 The fact of the matter is that more people fall ill or injure themselves through their own irresponsibility than don't. If a person ever came up to you and said that their years of chain-smoking have had a negative effect on their health, and that you are the one who should pay for the treatment, you'd laugh at them. That's why the entire premise of universal health care is ridiculous. The Constitution is quite clear on two subjects. First, that the sins of the father shall not be laid on the son; in other words, only the person who has done a wrong shall pay for a crime. Second, that collective punishment for one person's actions is absolutely not allowed. That one's even in the Geneva Convention.

 

Yet this is exactly what universal health care aims to do. It aims to put the burden of one person's irresponsible actions on the shoulders of another. It aims to make the collective whole responsible for something that they might not have done. Universal health care is a great idea if the world were a perfect place where injury and illness came only from the cruel hand of fate; in the real world, however, it is absolutely, categorically and unequivocally wrong. Universal health care is in direct opposition to what it means to be a freedom-loving, Geneva Convention-abiding, moral, decent human being.

Let's pretend for a moment that the very concept of an American universal health care system wasn't fundamentally flawed. That's a pretty tall order, and I dare say that it would be less ridiculous to pretend we were all magical flying unicorns, but never mind that.

There are some health care providers that cover the expenses of women who get abortions. Therefore, adopting a system of universal health care forces everyone in the country who pays taxes to pay for abortions. In America, women have the right to choose. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, but let's be clear: This means they have the right to choose credit or cash when they pay for it. They do not have the right to choose "Aaron Sakulich's tax money" when asked how they will pay for it. Religious beliefs aside, it's just a matter of honor; a man should not pay for a woman's abortion unless his penis was somehow personally involved.

Abortions are just one of the many problems. Some health care plans pay at least partially for plastic surgery. Some pay for medical marijuana, in places where that's legal. I personally don't think someone should cut their face open just if they've got a big nose they don't like. I also think that marijuana, though unparalleled in its ability to give one the munchies, has some problems, and I'd prefer my tax dollars not go to giving prescription bongs to hippies on the other side of the continent. Why should I, clocking in on the high end of "normal weight," pay for the stomach staples for a man who can neither stop eating Whoppers Deluxe nor spend part of his day anywhere but parked in front of a TV?  I shouldn't, and that is why universal health care is morally repugnant.

 

Universal health care is so riddled with problems, both in the fundamental theory behind it and in its practical application, that it is absolutely unsuitable for any sort of wide-scale, real-world applications. Cuba has universal health care; one cannot buy things like aspirin or laxatives anywhere on the island. Canada has taken a good swing at universal health care, and while basic services such as setting of bones and buying drugs are excellent, more advanced services such as organ transplants and chemotherapy can take years to come through. If you need an organ, waiting several years is generally difficult at best. Every Canadian I've ever met who has had a loved one fall seriously ill has nothing but bad words for their system of medicine. These countries have had decades to get universal health care to work; it isn't going to happen.

Our health care system is surely not perfect, but this insane, naïve plan to ignore everything we know about human nature is no solution. After a year with universal health care, there will be such a rush on hospitals and courtrooms that our legal system will be paralyzed and the tax rate will be 100 percent. It will be nothing short of communism.

It all boils down to the fact that universal health care will take the tax dollars of the people and put them to uses, such as abortion, that those people disagree with on some deep philosophical or religious level. Even ignoring this fatal flaw, in a country where choosing to smoke, people driving like jerks and hamburger-related heart diseases send more people to the hospital than all other causes added together and multiplied by a hundred, it is absolutely and unquestionably wrong to punish the innocent for the irresponsibility of the guilty. If this were a system of "take from the rich, give to the poor," it might have some merit to it, but a system of "rob from everyone and give to the irresponsible, the hypochondriac and the ignorant, and if we have some left over, to the poor" is obviously fundamentally and fatally flawed.

Aaron Sakulich is a junior majoring in materials engineering.

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