Both your points are valid, to some extent. I was thinking the other day about the health insurance issue and how things were in my grandfather's time. In those days, many people didn't have health insurance, but there were more local doctors available at reasonable cost. Of course, all the very expensive advancements in medical care weren't available either, and many people died if they got too sick.
I'd agree that health insurance isn't exactly a "right" for adult members of society. If anything, all our advancements in medicine have encouraged a reckless disregard for health and safety. Would extreme sports even exist without today's medical advances?
However, I'm not sure a government health care option for children would have to result in things like excessive drug use. Ultimately, the parents still have control of whether or not to follow through with any prescriptions written. And the potential benefits of better early life primary care could signficantly reduce our costs of adult care as many of these children grow up. That is, I think, the main argument in favor of the bill.
Taking into account both the risk and reward, I think I'd have to lean David's way on this discussion.
As for adults, I think a better government role in health care would be to aggressively attack its rising costs. That means rather than necessarily giving free care to all, I would envision an oversight role similar to successful agencies like OSHA or the EPA where excessive costs might be rooted out. Obviously, some bit of legal reform might have to enter the equation too. As more and more good, profitable companies find it hard to compete while supporting our health care costs, the problem will be magnified.
And what about as more baby boomers retire? A lot of these folks haven't exactly taken care of themselves and yet they are going to expect a comfortable retirement as have today's WWII generation. They'll probably expect, to a large degree, that extraordinary measures be taken to prolong life. This will be expensive, and I don't think my 1970's generation will necessarily have the numbers to support it. Some hard decisions coming up, I believe.
