Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 11/13/09 Section: Opinion
To the Editor:
If a man cannot afford a drug that would save his wife's life, can one really fault him for stealing the drug in order to let his wife live?
Simultaneously, can one fault the drug manufacturer for demanding an unaffordable price from this man if its business is based on creating prices that produce profits? What is more reasonable than blaming either of these two conflicting parties is considering a third party: the institution that allows money to control whether or not someone lives or dies. Money should control what level of luxury to which one can live his life, not whether or not that life exists. This creates the idealistic concept of universal health care.
However, in a nation like the United States, this brings up a new set of conflicting rational thoughts: idealism versus capitalism. To side solely with one of these does not work: Instituting universal health care would remove the medical field as an active competitor in the economy, while a laissez faire system pertaining to health care would leave too many people uncovered.
President Obama's plan does a great job of posing a solution to this problem. Regardless of what the final details are of the plan, such as if the Senate accepts the Public Option, or if Medicare is eligible to families at 150 percent of the federal poverty line (as the House proposes) or 133 (the Senate's proposal), a major step is being taking in the right direction to finding the happy medium between the two conflicting ideals, and the Obama administration deserves great praise for making this happen.
-- Dash Schwartz '13
If a man cannot afford a drug that would save his wife's life, can one really fault him for stealing the drug in order to let his wife live?
Simultaneously, can one fault the drug manufacturer for demanding an unaffordable price from this man if its business is based on creating prices that produce profits? What is more reasonable than blaming either of these two conflicting parties is considering a third party: the institution that allows money to control whether or not someone lives or dies. Money should control what level of luxury to which one can live his life, not whether or not that life exists. This creates the idealistic concept of universal health care.
However, in a nation like the United States, this brings up a new set of conflicting rational thoughts: idealism versus capitalism. To side solely with one of these does not work: Instituting universal health care would remove the medical field as an active competitor in the economy, while a laissez faire system pertaining to health care would leave too many people uncovered.
President Obama's plan does a great job of posing a solution to this problem. Regardless of what the final details are of the plan, such as if the Senate accepts the Public Option, or if Medicare is eligible to families at 150 percent of the federal poverty line (as the House proposes) or 133 (the Senate's proposal), a major step is being taking in the right direction to finding the happy medium between the two conflicting ideals, and the Obama administration deserves great praise for making this happen.
-- Dash Schwartz '13
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