Taylor Cross Source 3

Q: Should the government provide healthcare for its citizens?

Sasse, Benjamin, and Kerry Weems. "A Mad Rush to Health Reform." BusinessWeek 13 Jan. 2009:
0-85. Print.

In source three the authors criticize the new health care system put in place by president Barack Obama. They refer to it as embarrassing because of how rich our country is. They also talk about the different health care plans that could possibly be in place for our nation. "Individual Mandate" is one plan that is briefly brought up, which explains how citizens would have their own choice of insurance plan. Another plan that is mentioned is the "Employer Mandate" which is a tax that is put on businesses for not providing insurance for their employers. Then there is the commonly known "Public Plan" which is the plan that is run by the government. All these plans have pros and cons that could effect our nation in a big way, but will they ever come to a conclusion?

This source has opened my eyes to the different plans that are available to our nation, but yet we decide to use the most unsuccessful plan out there. While all the plans have cons to them we choose the plan with the most cons and benefits our nation least. They discussed the public plan in the article and how it could possibly force 118 million people into adopting the plan because the jobs they have will not be able to compete and they will potentially have to succumb to the government plan. To me that just sounds like complete control in the government and I completely disagree. This article helped strengthen my argument on how we should all be able to pick our own plans, bringing me to the point of the "Individual Mandate". This plan allows for all citizens to choose their own form of insurance. It would benefit providers and the consumers themselves. Although some people may be left with no medical help I still think it would be more beneficial than everyone having the same plan that could benefit in poor quality care.

This source goes hand and hand with the previous source I read about. They both talk about the "public plan" and how they both ultimately disagree with it because of the way it would effect our nation. Both talk about how it could decrease the quality of care we would receive and how favoritism could be shown through medical insurance depending on your social standing. They could also control the costs of the plan but in return the quality of care wouldn't necessarily be changed, they wouldn't correlate. In the end it could ultimately only benefit the government financially.

The right questions to ask here now are, Why are we choosing to provide the worst possible to our citizens when their are clearly better plans out there. Our nation is becoming broken and debt is at an all time high right now. What can we do to fix this problem instead of just ignoring it? How can we make this an important matter instead of brushing this national debt under the rug?