[Libertarian01]

To All,

One of the many groups that does not have health insurance are young, successful people in their mid 20's to mid 30's. Statistically this is a group of people that doesn't need health insurance. Couple that with the mindset of the invincibility of youth and these folks put off purchasing health coverage until later in life.

The Senate plan claims that these folks are not "carrying their own weight" in the overall cost of national health care. Thus, they are trying to "incentivise" this group to participate and carry their rightful load. Ergo, buy insurance and participate or pay a fine.

I do NOT agree with this. These people generally do not need health care. Younger people are less likely to have any significant healthcare issues, speaking in a solely statistical sense. The problem is, you don't buy insurance because of what you know will happen, you buy it in case the improbable happens. I don't know I will have an accident, statistically most people drive through life with nothing more than a minor fenderbender at worst. BUT we carry auto insurance because we might have a major problem that we cannot financially deal with on our own.

End of opiniion/observation on the Senate plan.

As to healthcare being a privilage or a right, I believe I will stand alone on my island on this one.

It occurred to me a while back that for healthcare to be a "privilage" you must be willing to allow EVERYONE that does not have insurance and/or wealth to die in the streets without even trying to do something to help them.

While healthcare may not be a "right" I believe that it is more than a "privilage". I am uncertain as to how to classify this with a word but the idea of being so calous as to just letting people suffer because they don't happen to make enough money to pay for their medical care on their own OR to have been able to afford health insurance seems unreasonable to me.

With that I AM willing to step over the dead corpse of some fool who doesn't take care of themselves and am more than willing to deny medical care to people who have been educated on what would help them, but they are just too lazy and/or resisitant to a lifestyle change to improve their own health. In the end I guess I would be reluctantly willing to pay for corpse removal through tax dollars.

I will fully admit hypocrisy here.

This is a problem to be solved by those far wiser than me. Alas, I believe that we have yet to elect such wise folks.

Regards and a safe 4th of July,

Doug