Here’s the best way that I can think of to pose this argument… Healthy Americans add up to a healthy workforce, which will be more productive, and ensure a stong economy. A sick workforce bogged down by expensive health care is less productive and results in a poor economy. Sick people, or those who can’t afford to get better don’t work as well. People crushed by healthcare debt or spending exorbitant sums to get better consequently have less money to spend on other things. If, suddenly, getting sick and paying for it didn’t run us to ruin (just as we don’t have to worry about building roads… or having a strong military…) and furthermore didn’t remove those people from the economy and workforce, America would have better workers and do better work.
There’s always a lot of talk about how innovation and entrepreneurship drive the American economy. I’d submit to you that people who are sick and can’t afford to get better (or even those who are forced to stay in a job they don’t like or won’t excel in because they need the health insurance) are not going to be innovators and entrepreneurs. How many Bill Gates and Steve Jobs can’t reach their potential because they’ve got to have jobs—working for other employers—that offer health insurance for themselves and their families? You can’t successfully strike out on your own if 1/3 to 3/4 of your income has to be spent on health care costs. There might be another Sarah Palin out there right now, but she’s stuck in an office job for the benefits and day care. How many Rush Limbaughs and Rupert Murdochs are being held back because they’re crushed by hospital bills from themselves or a family member? What if Glenn Beck was one sick child away from losing everything? Fortunately for Rush and Glenn and Rupert, they made their riches back when healthcare was cheaper, and now they can afford a year’s worth of the best rehab or a $600,000 hospital stay for a troublesome appendix.
I know if my appendix burst I’d have my life saved by the what’s probably the best health care in the modern world. But if it costs me everything I own and leaves me in financial ruins for the next ten years of my life, maybe I’d be better off dead. But either way, whether I was indebted to doctors and hospitals or dead and buried, I wouldn’t have much opportunity to start the next Chick-fil-A or Amway. I wouldn’t be able to get the small business loan, for starters.
A healthy workforce guarantees a stronger economy now and in the future. We make no money staying home sick nursing ourselves or loved ones. The less we spend on hospitals and pills the more we can spend on guns and bibles, pickup trucks and snowmobiles.
So why does everyone need affordable, reliable, efficient health care coverage? So we can stay healthy, or if we’re sick we can afford to get better. Because we all need to be at work in the morning.
