Why Universal Health Care Is Consistent with Minimal Government

[ncarraway]

I'm sensitive to arguments that government should be small; that it should protect individual freedoms rather than supporting institutions; that the best policy is often for governments to remain uninvolved unless they're protecting their constituency from outside forces (and not from ourselves). I'm especially sympathetic to this notion because of

Comments

[myopian8]

No, I agree pretty much completely. It confuses people sometimes that I espouse both small governments and universal health care.

But that's what the government is there to do: to protect you, be it from invading germs or Germans.

That said, I think if there were a system to forbid the coverage of people who smoke and get lung cancer (and so on), we'd have a similar coverage problem that we do now, where health insurance companies work the loopholes in the system to avoid covering people and keep costs low. Yeah, okay, we'd have to pay more to keep these people alive, but many of these lines are fuzzy. Smoking makes you more likely to get cancer; it doesn't guarantee it, just like eating tons of red meat makes it more likely that you'll have a heart attack. Should we not cover people who like steaks? What about people who don't exercise or who eat a lot of sugar? What about someone who drinks only very occasionally- should we cover them if they end up with liver cancer? Everyone can be accused of not keeping fit enough in some way.

[grenadier32]

Or pregnancy. There's one to bake your noodle. (For that matter, it is in fact considered a pre-existing condition in some circumstances.)

[deathwatchlove]

Well, being a woman is a pre-existing condition. That's why it's okay to beat your wife.

[myopian8]

I appreciate you, Nicole.

[rindi]

But the government's job is not to protect people. The government's job is to protect peoples' rights.