Topic: Health Care
A New Look on Health "Care" An opinion on weather or not America deserves national health care and an attempt to redefine what health care is.by C.M. Padilla
(conservative libertarian)
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The issue of a national health care system was one of the most important topics of the recent Presidential race, but do Americans even deserve it? I, for one, say the answer is an emphatic NO. I came to this answer by really thinking about the question of weather we deserve it or not and how do we decide if we deserve it. I came to the following question that I believe is a more fitting question: "Does America deserve a national health care system and, if so, what are we doing to keep ourselves healthy?"
I can tell you exactly what we are doing. We are smoking, drinking, eating McDonald's, sitting in front of the television, doing drugs and sleeping around. Americans, on average, live very sedentary lifestyles and do very little to maintain their health. According to an article titled "America's Health Checkup" by Alice Park in the December 1, 2008 issue of Time Magazine, 67% of Americans are currently overweight or obese. That leaves only one-third of the population within healthy weight limits and only 31% of Americans exercise regularly.
I would like to redefine health care with a much more appropriate definition synonymous with "preventive maintenance". When an individual cares for their health, they eat properly, exercise regularly, take vitamins if they are deficient and receive regular vaccinations and check-ups they are, in essence, practicing health care. The only culture in the United States that promotes this lifestyle is found among the four military services. The rest of America seems fairly content with letting themselves go.
What we know now as "Health Care" should be renamed "Health Repair". I feel that is much more fitting and better describes what people seem to really want. People are not asking for guidance for how to be pro-active and practice health care, they are asking for a re-active system that will nurse them back to health after they have let it go. Health care is an action, health repair is a reaction.
So, does America deserve Health Repair given it's inability to take care of itself? I do not think so. In the case of freak accidents where the patient needs services but cannot afford them, there should be programs in place to assist the truly needy...but not those who are sick as a result of their own lifestyles. Personally I say, "It's your ship, you sail in it".
The views expressed in this
article are those of C.M. Padilla only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. C.M. Padilla is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Your article makes some interesting points, but draws some smug and self-righteous conclusions. What you refer to as "health repair" isn't a very accurate description at all. We have, much more accurately, a "sick care" system. We take care of people who get sick, and don't even try to make them better, we perpetuate their condition with drugs, doctor visits, and apparatus for hips, hearts, and cholesterol.
You advocate a system that actually INTRUDES into people's lives, defining how they should live not offering them choices. They shouldn't eat at McDonald's, they shouldn't go without exercise, they should be proactive. That sounds about as regimented and dictatorial as something a dictator might prescribe.
What will be next? Requiring that everyone read at least one BOOK per month? Restricting TELEVISION viewing to no more than 5 hours per week? Requiring everyone to VOLUNTEER for charitable work on a regular basis? Should we BAN CIGARETTES? How about making sure that everyone reads an article of the US CONSTITUTION every day? I've read that recommendation from many Libertarians before.
Just because you feel that people are not living a lifestyle that YOU condone doesn't mean that they have to have one IMPOSED upon them. Death, health, sickness, intelligence, sociability, etc. are all CHOICES that people are free to make in a oountry like ours.
Do we really need HEALTH PRUDES imposing more restrictions and regulations on us just to satisfy their preferences.
Never once did I even mention policy forcing anybody to live any way. It was an opinion on weather or not Americans deserve a nationalized health care system based on the fact that Americans, on average, do not care for themselves in the first place. Yes, they have a choice to live however they want. I'm not telling anybody to go out and run a mile, I just do not see the point in nursing these people back to health since they don't seem to care about it anyway. That was the whole point of the final words of the article: "It's your ship, you sail in it."
We have developed the wrong attitude in America. We think we can destroy everything we have and Uncle Sam will just come in and make it all better. There has to come a point where people take accountability for their own lives. People are running around like a bunch of spoiled children with pushover parents.
I am never in the doctor's office because I live a healthy lifestyle and I am also not pleading for a health care system...I can do that myself. I don't need the government to take care of me, I am fully capable as an adult to tend to my own needs.
And why would we ban McDonals or cigarattes? I have stock in the Altria Group, Inc. I don't smoke, I don't advocate it, I try to get all my friends to quit, but it should not be banned. It's a question of civil liberties. We also receive some nice taxes from it.
All I am saying is that people should take control of their own lives, not ruin what they have and get Uncle Sam to foot the bill. And if you really read the article, I think you would see all of that.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2008-12-17 18:06:09
I say no, America does not deserve national health care, sick care or health repair. Not because I think individual Americans are undeserving based on their lifestyle and priorities.
I we don't deserve a national system because we have earned and created a better system. What we need is deregulation, caps on lawsuits and more "Let the buyer beware" medicine. I want the best health care money can buy and I don't want to be forced to fly to Asia to get it. Any national system imposed here will provide a relentless incentive for the best and brightest to seek employment elsewhere; in places where the free market is more alive than in Socialist America.
the question was what about children? children who for whatever reason need health care? whatever....parents are inept, stupid, incapable, drugged, cheap, unhealthy, etc. and the kids for whatever reason don't have health care or let's say food or maybe a place to live? because of some "ideology" we don't give children the most basic essentials that they don't have because their parents for whatever reason can't or won't? that's not libertarianism, it is socail fascism!
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