No matter how well people take care of themselves by exercising, eating well, and behaving safely, there is always a very real chance of getting hurt or sick at any time. Unfortunately, many Aericans (actually 37 million) live in a fantasy world and tell themselves, "It will never happen to me." These people either can't or neglect to purchase health insurance. Many who do buy insurance do not research differnent options to find the best deal. Therefore, when illness doesn hit them, they are completely unprepared and will possibly have to file for bankruptcy.

Health insurance was less of a concern for Americans in the 1960's and 1970's. Usually, employers would match what the employee paid for insurance. But, during the 80's, people began to see health insurance costs rising, and today, premiums are anually increasing by as much as 15%. At this rate, present premium costs will be double what they are today in just six years. Now that many people are not able to insure themselves, I think it is time for the government to step in and perform serious surgery.

There are a few steps the American people and their government can take to improve the current health care system. Presently, Medicare attempts to protect citizens over 65 by providing them with health insurance and Medicaid is supposed to cover underprivileged families. But neither system is performing its job efficiently and both are beig questioned as to their effectiveness by numerous Americans.

Medicare and Medicaid should be scrapped. There are giant gaps in both programs. A person may find they are not protected for a procedure that would seem ogivcal to be insured. The government tried to patch this problem with Medigap but failed. In addition, many Americans who are in need of assistance cannot get help throug these outdated programs. They are not doing their job and a new system must be found. The answer is not allocating more money to health care. Our government already spends the most of any country---$600 billion annually. Therefore, it is obvious that the problem is with how that money is distributed. Instead of trying to patch the existing programs, major restructuring is necessary.

The best solution to our problem is to give all citizens a voucher for an amount proportional to their income, that would be used for purchasing health insurance. In order to give consumers the opportunity to make the most logical choce of which insurance company they choose, the government needs to provide counselors or literature to aid consumers in this important task. With this method the two important elements in a good health care system are provided-- information and insurance. These are the "Two I's" of health care. Non-biased information would be provided by the government about different compaies and the firms themselves would still be permitted to advertise as always. The money for the insurance would be provided by the government and the insurance itself would still be provided by existing insurance companies.

This is a better system for America than government provided systems such as Canada has because insurance company employees would retain their jobs. If the government provided universal health care to all citizens free of charge, many insurance employees across the nation would lose their jobs. Also, Canadian- style health care is agaist the entire American way of life. If the government took over the system, they would have a monopoly in which no consumers had a choice and no businesses had competition. This would go against everything capitalism and the free-market economy is based on. Our government would be supporting a socialistic way of life.

Forgetting that past government health care systems are failing miserably, forgetting that new, all-governemnt systems would be anti-American and job killing, citizens should still be able to see one simple, obvious, and convincing fact to prove that the proposed system is the best. This fact is the goverment's need to spend more time concentrating on issues that are their direct responsiblity, such as foreign policy, the deficit, and education; and less tie on issues that Americans should be resposible about for themselves as long as they have the means of doing so. If the government supplied citizens with the proposed vouchers they wuld be giving them the means to be responsible and to obtain insurance.

The United States government cannot hold the hand of each of its citizens, but as long as it gives them the means to take care of themselves, no one can complain.

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