HEALTH: A better prescription

Republicans released their long awaited health care plan, and it’s a doozy. Their plan applies their standard “specialty tax credit” strategy to health care. This plan uses the same economic theory that has generated our current “low income” economy and insane level of debt. Create special tax cuts that get passed along to businesses, and then those businesses will do great things for us. That plan hasn’t worked out too well for most of us, has it? The credit is also too small to offset the cost of health care, is blind to need, and you only get it once a year. We pay for insurance each month. How many of us have extra cash to make monthly loans to the government?

Republicans argue that this is a “small government” solution that gives us more freedom to choose. Maybe so. But, what is the value of choice when you can only afford to window shop? It’s fun to dream, but we have to live in reality. Health care is unaffordable, and the Republicans’ plan will make it even more unaffordable than it is under Obamacare.

There is a different option. One that both the Republicans and Democrats have neglected, but Bernie Sanders champions. It’s the strategy that yields affordable health care to people in Canada and Europe. They pay half as much we do while living longer and healthier lives. They also don’t go bankrupt over medical bills or have to choose between food and medical care.

We could have the same, if we’d let people who can’t afford private insurance pay what they can afford into Medicare or Medicaid and use those proven programs. This would make health care more accessible and affordable. This would expand government’s role in health care, but it’s also proven and effective. We can pay for it by invading fewer countries and dropping fewer bombs. Buy fewer war machines and invest more in our citizens. Less killing, more living and more Christian love for our neighbors. That’s what the Bible teaches we should do, isn’t it?

CRAIG COOPER

Hayden