Protestantism

» Brian Tubbs - Health Care

The whole health care situation is a serious problem - and it's only going to get worse. I don't know what the answers are. I would say that the candidates who come up with the most crowd-pleasing ways to address the issue will do the best at the ballot box. It's definitely a top priority (and understandably so) for voters.

But...you are faced with some real, legitimate, give-and-take issues with respect to health care. Those issues start with...

You have an aging baby boomer population that is much too big to be supported by the tax dollars of the next generation behind it - mine.

Many (not all - but many) of the health care crises we have are due to poor lifestyle choices on the part of people. I'm preaching to myself here. But if you eat junk food a lot, it will catch up with you. And we, as a consumer society, are addicted to bad eating habits.

Not only that...but destructive sexual habits too and drug abuse problems and heavy drinking and smoking and on and on and on. Think about it...we have people binge drinking and chain smoking - taking their FREEDOM to wash their lives down the drain! And who pays to take care of them????

If people lived more responsibly and (yes) more morally, it would help our health care situation a GREAT deal!

In addition to that...you have a shortage of health care providers. This will become even more significant as more baby boomers retire. We don't have enough nurses, doctors, and other health care service providers.

How do you solve that problem? Do you FORCE people into health care careers? Start up a DRAFT system? Or do you incentivize them? If the latter, how do you pay for that? There's a ripple effect in the economy.

Getting back to paying the health care bills themselves...

One of the biggest problems (frankly) is litigation. We have to do something about tort reform. Doctors have to pay enormous fees just to cover their legal insurance. That cost flows to the customer!

All of the above, of course, is just scratching the surface. The health care crisis is a huge problem. It's not going to be an easy one to tackle.