The other side of health insurancwe

Its a matter of opinion. Yesterday I blogged about the affordability of health insurance and issues around it. I got an anonymous comment which said:

"I think it's really about the good old US of A being the ONLY developed nation that still does not provide universal health insurance. We are like fish oblivious to the water we swim in, it doesn't have to be this way."

This made me think. I think that the benefit of the ACA was to offer more affordable health insurance options to many. No matter how flawed the system may be. My opinion is that the health insurance industry had Americans over a barrel and were blocking people from getting health insurance due to previous medical conditions or jacking up their rates so they became unaffordable. Also, bankruptcies due to medical bills were climbing.

HOWEVER

As a rule American's do not like being told what to do. We want and enjoy our many freedoms. The opposite of freedom is confinement or limitation. Its a matter of choice of what we want. Also, many people want smaller government and do not think the government should interfere with their lives.

While I like the idea of social programs such as medical care and social security, we should not become a country of spoiled brats where we expect everything to be given to us on a silver platter. The government has many responsibilities and cannot give everything to everyone, unless you want to live in a socialist or communist state.

I, for one, am very pro-health insurance and its affordability. The industry demonstrated that it could not affordably insure us by focusing on their profits and not our health. The government took a fairly drastic step and made them change their ways which turned into the ACA.

It's definitely not a perfect system and requires us to sign up for health insurance as a way to provide a huge pool of both healthy and sick people to balance things out. But I do not think that the government was supposed to be in the business of  being a health care provider.

And if you can find any country's universal health system that is perfect, please let me know. I have heard too many stories from too many countries about long delays for care, people who pay for private health care because the national program is poorly run or poorly staffed, and lack of access to testing equipment.