“Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” Matt 5:42
Jesus set a high bar for Christians.
We ARE our brother’s keeper.
I believe that you can make a strong moral argument for universal healthcare that should transend cost. The right thing to do is offer care to all who need it whether they can afford it or not.
Fortunately, it also makes economic sense.
The cost for subsidies to help the those who aren’t covered by private or government plans has been estimated at $1T over ten years .
So the simple question is what is the economic impact of spending an additional $100B a year to provide health care coverage for everyone?
Unlike oil, that money stays in this country. Domestically, it’s a wash. The $100B can be viewed as another economic stimulus program generating increased employment and taxes from the health care sector of the economy.
Is it a productive use of our resources? Again the answer is yes because under the current system, the cost of providing care to the uninsured and underinsured through expensive emergency room visits adds $1000 a year to every private insurance policy. Universal coverage will give the underserved access to much cheaper preventative care delivered through physician offices. The $1000 savings will end up going back into the pockets of the insured just like a tax cut. From this perspective, the $100B/yr is way less than the annual cost of the Bush tax cuts and delivers more money to the middle class.
Finally, there is the big issue of how this affects the deficit and our government’s ability to borrow money. Fortunately the answer is simple here too. According to the CBO, the greatest threat to our solvency is not recent stimulus funding or the current deficit but projected increases in Medicare and Medicaid costs. Those increases are driven by the current inefficient health care system, an aging underserved population, and the failure to provide the sort of early intervention which can reduce the incidence of chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.
So if you are a fiscal conservative, you should be for healthcare reform. If we fail to address this issue, it will only reinforce the international perception that our political system is incapable of resolving our largest, most difficult fiscal problem.
Taking on the burden of caring for all of our citizens will not only make us a healthier country physically, and a better country morally, but will also make us a stronger country financially. It’s nice how that works out.