Everyone knows how expensive medical bills can be. For people with chronic illnesses, monthly medical needs are nearly impossible to pay for without help from insurance. To help these people, the government has provided affordable health insurance for years in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. In recent years doctors have stopped accepting Medicare because it pays for such a small percentage of patients medical bills. To counteract this, the Obama administration is now attempting to pass legislature to provide universal health care for the entire United States of America. The bill has passed the Senate, House, and the President signed off on it on Tuesday, March 30. The bill will be reviewed by the Supreme Court to determine its constitutionality and because there are more conservative justices on the supreme court than liberal justices, some believe the bill will be deemed unconstitutional and will fail. To get a better understanding for universal health care you must first understand the history of the issue.

CHS Social Studies Teacher Mr. David Mayne explained. He said,  "Historically, it can be traced back to the Progressive Era of the late 1800's. It came along with the idea that the government should intervene in the economy on behalf of the workers or the people in need. You see a blend of capitalism and socialism, which every country does. We saw a similar development during the Great Depression, where we saw more revolutions, more involvement, more input from the government into the economy, making sure workers received compensation, that there was a minimum wage, and there were certain benefits. A lot of them were originally privatized and unions were able to get them on their own interactions with businesses, but then the government stepped in as well. In the mid sixties we saw the development of Medicaid and Medicare and ever since we have seen the progressive development of how many services the government provides." 

As with any political issue, the topic of universal health care has its advocates and its conscientious objectors. Even within the halls of CHS you will find strong proponents for both sides ready and willing to defend their stance.

Senior Ethan Lowenstein is a strong advocate for Universal Health Care. Ethan believes all U.S. citizens should be provided affordable or free health insurance, and he believes the plan outlined by the Obama administration will be a success. He said, "We need health care, but the health care we have not is not working, and we need to change to fix that. We need to change to make our health care system work better for America as a whole." Ethan was very happy to learn the bill passed the president and is keeping his fingers crossed so the bill will pass the supreme court. The opposing side has just as many intelligent advocates.

Sophomore Justin Persell believes the current health care bill is approaching the situation completely wrong. Justin said, "Here's the difference between the Democrat's plan and the Republican's plan. The Democrats want to eliminate the monopoly the insurance companies have and replace it with a huge government one. The republicans want to break up the monopolies by imposing competition and enforcing it. This would bring down costs and make health care readily available to the whole country. It's common sense; the government has never been proven to take on anything properly. Even the post offices are going bankrupt." Justin also believes the bill is 100% unconstitutional. He said, "It violates the 10th amendment, the freedom of choice and in some cases it violates freedom of religion. Some religions are not allowed to have health insurance, but with this plan they would eventually have to be covered by it." Justin feels national health care needs to be fixed but this is not the way to do it successfully.

When it comes to politics CHS is the place to find the most diverse beliefs no matter what the topic or issues. No matter who is correct in their beliefs, the fact of the matter is, if the bill passes huge change will be happening and every citizen of the United States of America will feel the repercussions. Whether they are good or bad, only time will tell.