I think everyone has heard about the health care situation in the United States. A combination of greedy physicians, high costs of malpractice insurance, and overextensive testing has made health coverage unaffordable for the middle-class family.

Lately, there have been many questions asked about whether or not the government should step in and reorganize the health care system to make it more affordable. People who support this idea say that it may be one of the only things that will save this nation's health care systems.

Opponents say that we should look at the track record of the government in previous attempts to take over a national system. The IRS, for example, seems to pick on people who don't have any extra money while the rich guys get passed over. All the while they show compassion comparable to that of an elephant poacher. Another good example is the United States Postal Service. It may be true that it gets almost all of the mail a person sends to its intended destination, but it does so with the efficiency of a coal-burning steam engine. Another thing that opponents of this move point out is that is is another move toward a socialistic country. How long after they stick their noses into the health insurance industry will it be before they take over the whole health care program? And how long after that before they take over transportation and other major systems? Health insurance is just part of the health care industry, but is is hard to go wading in a ten-foot deep pool.

I think that instead of the government stepping in and paying part of the insurance they should find out reasons why it is so expensive and try to make it more affordable. A pamphlet, but out by the Committee for Economic Development in 1987 points out some scary facts. In 1986 alone, the rate of inflation for health care was 7.7 percent. That represents a rate about 7 times that of the Consumer Price Index. If you take a look at the long-term increase in health care, it gets even scarier. In 1967 health care was a $42 billion-a-year industry, with the government financing 26 percent of it. By 1985, that figure jumped to $425 billion, with the government no financing 41 percent. From 1966 to 1980, cost of combined Medicare and Medicaid doubled every four years.

One reason, although a small one, for the increase was that in 1950, only one-half of the U.S. population had health coverage. By 1984, four out of five Americans had coverage. Also, if it seems as though there are a lot more doctors to do the same amount of doctoring these days, it's because there are. In the past 20 years, the doctor-to-patient ratio has increased 48 percent. Another good way to reduce the cost of health care is to convince people to cut down on hazardous ways of living. Of the approximately 2 million Americans who died last year, almost 500,000 of those deaths can be linked to tobacco use. Another 100,000 deaths can be attributed to alcohol. Illegal drugs are the cause of another 35,000, that includes people who die from AID they acquired by sharing drug needles. I think on way of cutting spending is focusing on major issues like smoking and not on minor problems that no one even knows for sure are harmful. Some of these include testing for lead and other chemicals in drinking water and also on randon gas exposure. Some of the standards for drinking water are measured in parts per billion. That figures out to about a drop in an olympic-sized swimming pool.Instead of focusing so much attention on and spending so much money on things like that,it would be a lot more feasible to make cigarettes illegal. Although this would anger a lot of people at first, I think everyone would agree that it is a good idea after they controlled their addiction. As for the original question of what the government's role in health care should be, I think they should have no role other than to try to cut down on the reasons why it is so expensive. If the government does nothing other than pay for a larger part of health insurance costs, the insurance companies will keep raising costs because everyone knows how to take advantage of government programs.

In the U.S. right now, there are over 7,000 hospitals, 600,000 doctors and millions of other people in the health care profession. The money spent in the health care industry now amounts to almost 10 percent of the national income. The government, in my mind, should keep its nose in its own business. The United States should remain as much of a free-market nation as possible. Paying for more of it isn't going to help, and unless something is done to control costs, health care is going to be expensive for ever and ever.

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