Universal Health Care?

Should the government be responsible for ensuring everyone gets the health care they need?

On my workout one morning this week, I listened to the recording of the debate on this subject at NPR's "Intelligence Squared." Take an hour and listen to this, too.

At the beginning of the Oxford-style debate, 49 percent of the audience agreed with the motion that the government is responsible, 24 percent disagreed and 27 percent said they were undecided. After the debate, the "undecideds" split almost equally. Fifty-eight percent of the audience agreed with the motion (a gain of 9 percentage points), 34 percent disagreed (a gain of 10 percentage points), and 8 percent remained undecided.

The room jumped from 49% to 58% in favor of universal health care. And this was even with this hilarious goof by Paul Krugman. Krugman points to the Canadian health care system as a model for the U.S., and touts Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA hospital in our own country as demonstrations of how well-run government-controlled health care systems can be. (No, seriously.) In the Q&A time, he wanted to use the Canadians in the room as Exhibit A. He asked for a show of hands (ABC News' John Donvan was the moderator):

Krugman: --and I wanted to ask, actually two questions, to the audience. First, how many Canadians, would Canadians in the room please raise your hands. [One person applauds, laughter]

Donvan: We have about seven hands going up—

Krugman: OK, not as many as I thought. OK, of those of you who are not on the panel who are Canadians, how many of you think you have a terrible health care system. [pause] One, two--

Donvan: We see—almost all of the same hands going up. [laughter]

Krugman: Bad move on my part

Along with the Canadians Krugman wanted to use as an example, I don't think socialized health care is the answer. Still, we need better collaboration between the market and the government to improve our nation's health coverage. I worry for my sons and their future families now that they are just a few years away from being out from under our health care plan. It's looking pretty shaky out there. This NPR debate should give you food for thought.