Right to Life, Liberty and Free Health Care? -- By Holland Woodbury

Selected Republican and Democratic members of Congress met for a summit this week to discuss health care reform. Our representatives attended in hopes of resolving some of the controversy regarding the health care bill, but the meeting ended with more one-sided solutions to our nation’s ever present problem.

Many people think that our current health care system is corrupt and that free medical care should be provided by the government. We are even willing to spend billions of dollars reforming our current system.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees its citizens the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, yet our country's forefathers never intended to provide our citizens with free health services. If we guarantee it for all citizens, doctors will be overstretched and our tax dollars will pay for the problems of the unhealthy, plunging our economy even further into debt. Health care is a privilege that all Americans have the chance to obtain, not a right that all Americans are guaranteed.

Many Americans, however, would argue the opposite. Americans who believe that health care is a basic right say that ensuring health care for all citizens will decrease costs by allowing people to receive regular and preventive medical care rather than wait until they are chronically ill to seek treatment when medical costs are much higher. According to a few polls, many American citizens support government funded health care, yet there is still disagreement over who should be awarded care and to what extent.

Guaranteeing free health care to all citizens will increase the demand for medical services which will diminish the quality and accessibility of care because health care providers will be overstretched. The 60 percent of doctors who are self-employed will be hardest hit. That includes specialists, such as dermatologists and surgeons, who see a lot of private patients. Doctors will consolidate into larger practices to spread overhead costs, and they will cram more patients into tight schedules to make up in volume what is lost in margin. Visits will be shortened and new appointments harder to secure, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. This means that the quality of doctors will decrease, appointments will be harder to schedule, and the overall system will become less effective.

Health care is the individual’s responsibility, not the government’s. It is our own responsibility to ensure personal health. Health problems such as obesity, lung cancer, and diabetes can often be prevented by choosing to live a healthier lifestyle. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 34 percent of Americans are obese and 32 percent are overweight. If health care is guaranteed for everyone, then our tax dollars will be paying for the health problems  many citizens who chose not to live a healthy lifestyle. Also, if these citizens are guaranteed health care what incentive would they have to be healthy?

 Providing coverage to everyone is not cheap. According to a preliminary estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, expanding coverage to an additional 36 million Americans would cost $1.055 trillion over the next decade. This kind of expense would only ravage our struggling economy further.

Ensuring personal health is the individual’s responsibility not the government’s.

Holland Woodbury is a senior at Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington, N.C.

The Need for Universal Health Care -- By Shelby Jones

As shown in this week's summit convened by President Obama, the lack of compromise between the Republican and Democratic parties in regard to the health care issue has impeded progress on a reform bill that could help many Americans.

Many people are losing their coverage because of the economy and creating a system that provides health insurance to everyone is long overdue.  Opponents of expanding health care feel the government should not be involved in this issue, and individuals have the responsibility to provide their own source of health care.

But with so many Americans in need, the government needs to intervene to solve the problem.  As Thomas Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, all American are entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But the lack of an efficient health care system in America is eroding away the inalienable rights and values that our country is based upon.

Many conservative Americans feel that a public health care option would be destructive to our nation.  Opponents feel that granting universal coverage will cause the availability of care and the quality of it to diminish in the United States because of the abundance of people who will be covered in the new plan.

Although it is not explicit in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, the need for universal health care is more apparent than ever before. There are over 300 million Americans, a significant portion of whom lack access to adequate health care.

Cost is a primary argument against reform. Opponents argue that government-sponsored health care would cause taxes to increase and increase the nation's deficit, which would only be detrimental to our struggling economy. In reality, the cost of health care as it stands is unaffordable for many citizens.  According to the American Journal of Medicine, 62.1 percent of bankruptcies in 2007 were related in some way to medical expenses. 

The cost of health care for average working families is too high, but adding a small amount of money to everybody’s taxes is nothing compared to staggering death rates because people cannot afford assistance.  A universal health care system is essential to improving the economy.

Governmental health care is a necessary approach to turning around our nation’s medical coverage disparity and to maintaining our globally competitive economy. Although the U. S. is a top competitor in the business and technological worlds, we are the only industrialized country that lacks a universal health care system. 

Even though this topic has been debated ruthlessly in the past few years, a solution needs to be found to better the citizens and the economy as a whole.  Regardless that the opponents of this issue feel the government should not be involved, they cannot deny that with the decrease of coverage and increase of costs, the government needs to intervene.

Shelby Jones is a senior at Cape Fear Academy. A leader on the volleyball team, in the Diversity Club, and in the classroom, Shelby plans to attend George Mason University or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall.