A number of people in Maine have been arguing for universal health care. For example:
Michael Bacon of Westbrook (“It’s time to abandon private health insurance,” Jan. 7) argues “Commercial health insurance is irredeemable. It is time to treat health care as an essential public good and to institute single-payer (publicly funded) universal health care.”
Paul Cain, MD, of Oxford, past president of the Maine Medical Association (“Maine knows the time for health care reform is now,” Dec. 24), argues “Our health care system should provide universal coverage, through either an adequately funded single-payer system or a combination of private and public financing.”
And, Douglas Rooks, who has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter (“In shutdown’s wake, a golden opportunity for nationalized health care,” Nov. 20), argues “We need a national health care system, organized and directed by government, just like every other developed country.”
Perhaps I am a minority of one, but I see several problems with universal health care.
First, a Dec. 25 editorial in the Washington Post argues that the British National Health Service relies on rationing to stay afloat. And second, health derives both from health behaviors (such as eating property, exercising, not smoking), and from health care. As currently set up, health care, whether public or private, is provided regardless of what caused the problem.
An affordable approach, then, would provide health care, whether public or private, contingent on a healthy lifestyle. This would reduce costs in two ways. First, those who abused their bodies would not receive health care. Second, some of those with a tendency to abuse their bodies would shift toward a healthier lifestyle, thereby becoming healthier and so needing less health care.
William Vaughan Jr.
Chebeague Island