What is the value of one life? / My Health Care Insurance Reform

There is no price, or value to a life. It is however too valuable to give away. Some say the elderly or the young are less valuable than those who are 15-40 years old. It is an idea under the surface of some more radical beliefs. In practice, it is not desired but a resulting system of value for nations which seek to provide limited resources to as many as possible.

No life at any point is any less valuable than that of another. When I wrote about race I spoke of the equality of all people, our inherent possiblity being equal. I stand by than and wish to expand upon it. No matter how old you are your potential for success is the same as anyone else.

We are social creatures and every life we come in contact with leaves an attachment which, if broken, causes pain. A system which considers the attachment to the elderly as less valuable than the attachment to the young, or the "productive", will eventually dehumanize our emotions and remove our ability to connect. This will make us no longer human.

So when you look to countries which provide universal anything, be it college, health care, housing, think of how they value life. When a government you live under proposes giving everyone a part of something which is finite, question how they will value human life.

When I look to this health care insurance proposal by the House of Representatives, and Congress, and Obama's unwritten yet often spoken of proposal, I think of the various groups having more lines given for certain groups. I do not want, under a universal plan, to see veterans, or the elderly, or the young, or the rich, or the poor get a different deal from this. All people are created equal and should be treated as such.

As for what plan would be best, in terms of the government option in the health care insurance reform, I believe that a new approach needs to be taken. Instead of getting covered when your problem arises, have a system in which people are in a position to be prepared to pay for the treatments they need.

Having a bank account, one that will not be taxable, which will have an interest rate paid by a bank, like a regular account, but a fund-match program by the government. The money can only be retrieved after a person has gotten medical attention, which can have a system similar to a credit card where the account is instantly accessed at the store, in this case a hospital or doctor's office.

This program will be in combination with other insurance plans, but a government gaurantee of $1,000,000 for emergency medical treatments, usable only when the account has been overdrawn and for a chronic condition (cancer included). This could be expanded that chronic conditions always be covered by the government, while basic health care such as doctor visits and emergency surgery be paid for by the currenty system in combination with the bank program.

A law with this could be written, in common understanding (instead of "legal speak"), as the following:

A. Health Care Bank Fund
1. A savings account only accessable by medical practitioners.
2. A savings account which will have a match-fund through government funds.
3. A savings account not accessable for any other purpose.
B. Chronic Conditions Gauranteed Treatment
1. A government fund to cover the first $1,000,000 of a cancerous disease.
2. Upon the excess of $1,000,000 a secondary fund from which citizens choose to donate will be drawn upon.
2a. This secondary fund will be funded by citizens choosing an option on their income tax to donate.
3. A government fund to cover the unlimited cost of other chronic illnesses.

New law over. It isn't 1,000 pages long. It will improve the financial side which has to pay for treatments. Does this solve the rising cost of health care? No, but it is a start to the reform we need. It gives people another option, which is good. That option is not taking away other options, which is good.

More of my health care plan is in the works.