A Healthy Democracy Depends On Healthy Citizens

    As we quickly approach another election, we are inundated with information on the many issues being hotly debated by the two political parties.  At the heart of these debates is the role our federal government should play when it comes to many of the common concerns the American people share.  I don’t believe anyone would argue that there always seems to be an exhaustive list of problems to be addressed.  Consequently, the focus tends to shift to the largest issues especially when it relates to money, and the overall potential cost to the American taxpayer.  One of these primary issues is the current healthcare mandate known as “Obamacare.”  During the campaign process of the 2008 election, President Obama proposed the need for healthcare reform was long overdue, and promised if he was elected that he would make revising the current system a priority.  He kept his word, and although he faced great challenges, the new healthcare reform finally was passed and signed into law.  However, even several years later, “Obamacare” is still being criticized and challenged for a multitude of reasons.  Addressing all of the issues would be exhaustive, and is not the intent of this blog.  What I would like to focus on is why I feel our federal government has a responsibility to ensure every citizen has access to affordable healthcare, which requires it to take a more active role.

     This country was founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It is impossible to have any of those things if people don’t have their health.  Therefore, it is vital for any democratic society to ensure that their government values and protects their citizen’s healthcare in the same way they value education, justice, or homeland security.  There is no doubt, how much of a role our government should play in regards to regulating the private sector has also been an issue of heated debate.   However, in order to ensure that every citizen is afforded the same rights and freedoms, our government often has to step in and set standards, establish policies, and even pass laws.  Ironically, most US citizens agree that our healthcare system is broken, and badly in need of change.  Unfortunately, how to fix it has been a huge point of contention, which has hindered real measureable steps toward reform.  So at what point do we say enough is enough?  Isn’t it in our best interest to have a healthy society?   Isn’t our government’s first responsibility to defend and protect us? 

     Another point is in regards to equality.  Once again, I go back to the founding principles from the previous paragraph.  Doesn’t every citizen have the right to access affordable healthcare?  How do we make sure that right is protected when private corporations who discriminate in the name of profit primarily run the healthcare system?  In my opinion, this is where government has to take an active roll by establishing some basic rules and guidelines that protect its citizen’s from unfair practices that breed inequality, and harm society as a whole.  A prime example of this would be excluding a person from coverage because they have a pre-existing condition.  That is like saying you can’t go to school because you don’t have an education!  Furthermore, by allowing unfair practices like this to be tolerated, we are basically saying we have learned nothing from the mistakes of our founding fathers.   More specifically, I am referring to the point in history when they fought so hard for the natural rights of a man, and yet allowed slavery, and inequality for women.   How can we allow people to incur massive debt, and even die, because they are denied or can’t afford healthcare coverage? 

     There is no doubt, a majority of the American public, agree healthcare reform is badly needed.  However, the biggest stumbling block preventing progress appears to be from the fundamentally different philosophies the two political parties embrace.  One feels government should play a predominant role and the other not so much.  Unfortunately, our healthcare system is in the mess it is in because private enterprise, and the quest for corporate profit, has been allowed to prevail at the expense of our citizens and society as a whole.  One of our founding fathers argued for the merit of a federal government by warning us against factions.  Described in the history textbook Am Gov as, “groups most often driven by economic motive, who threaten the unity of the new Republic by placing their own interests above those of the nation as a whole.”  In my opinion, factions are at the root of the healthcare problem in this country, and the only way to change that is for our government to take a more active role.