Should We Be Required To Have Insurance?

In USA Today dated September 22, 2011 in the opinion section under debates and editorials, I came across an editorial titled “Everyone should be required to have insurance.” This definitely caught my attention because this has been a huge topic of debate for today’s candidates. The editorial does not have an author, which when I first read the article, thoroughly surprised me. But upon further review, it appears that any editorial written in USA Today is reviewed and decided upon by an Editorial Board that is “demographically and ideologically diverse” to ensure an unbiased opinion. As a result, the article appears to be reviewed by an objective and thoroughly diverse board, which makes the article a likely source that would be honest in its reporting the news.

The intended audience appears to be the American people that currently have health insurance. I gathered that from the author repeating how an uninsured person would be taking or “freeloading” from an insured person. The editorial’s evidence shows that “hospitals raise charges for everyone else” while attempting to pay for treatment of uninsured. This claims to add “more than $1,000” a year to the cost of health insurance according to Families USA.

I agree with the editorial for I have seen firsthand how people with no insurance use the Government’s resources in lieu of making an attempt at a better life for themselves. This in turn raises cost for hard working Americans that are insured. I also agree with the logic that if an elected President makes the decision to have everyone insured it alleviates stress from already insured Americans. I believe it is “a matter of personal responsibility” for an individual to be insured.

The argument proposed is successful in grabbing my attention and keeping it long enough to side with the author. Which convinces me that every American does need to be insured. It convinces me because the author provides hard evidence of how costs of health insurance would go up if an individual is uninsured. The article goes along with my original beliefs and simply reinforces my current beliefs.

I am interested to see how more political debates pan out concerning healthcare, along with the many other topics up for debate. Wouldn’t it be a much better world if everyone were actually responsible for their own health and not be dependent on others?