Do you think that health care should be free or cheap for everyone?

Health care doesn’t always have to be something someone else does.

Every individual should take care of his or her own health so as not to become sick. That is not free, because it means eating good quality food, getting exercise, avoiding toxins in the environment, etc. That kind of health care is a lot cheaper than the alternative, however.

People used to be much more capable of dealing with minor health issues in their families, but now people are unfortunately taught they should run to a doctor for every little thing. I think more independence needs to be encouraged and people need to be taught to live healthy lives. And the role of doctors should change to really be able to offer some useful assistance in keeping people healthy.

But forcing everybody to pay for health insurance would not help. Normal health care should be affordable enough for people to be able to pay for it without having an insurance company in the middle.

There needs to be some provision for catastrophic care, but insurance companies do a very poor job of covering that sort of risk. That’s where government has a role. Making sure people don’t needlessly die or go bankrupt in a disaster is the most important function of health insurance.