Nicholas Kristof : 'What's at stake in this election? Lives like my old roommate's fighting cancer'

Nicholas Kristof ?@NickKristof
Want to know what's at stake in this election? Lives like my old roommate's, now fighting cancer http://nyti.ms/Ou087c

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_____ Let’s just stipulate up front that Scott blew it. Other people are sometimes too poor to buy health insurance or unschooled about the risks. Scott had no excuse. He could have afforded insurance, and while working in the pension industry he became expert on actuarial statistics; he knew precisely what risks he was taking. He’s the first to admit that he screwed up catastrophically and may die as a result . . .

The Mitt Romney philosophy, as I understand it, is that this is a tragic but necessary byproduct of requiring Americans to take personal responsibility for their lives. They need to understand that mistakes have consequences. That’s why Romney would repeal Obamacare and leave people like Scott to pay the price for their irresponsibility.

To me, that seems ineffably harsh. We all make mistakes, and a humane government tries to compensate for our misjudgments. That’s why highways have guardrails, why drivers must wear seat belts, why police officers pull over speeders, why we have fire codes. In other modern countries, Scott would have been insured, and his cancer would have been much more likely to be detected in time for effective treatment.
Is that a nanny state? No, it’s a civilized one.

President Obama’s care plan addresses this problem inelegantly, by forcing people like Scott to buy insurance beginning in 2014. Some will grumble about the “mandate” and the insurance cost, but it will save lives.


read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-possibly-fatal-mistake.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&pagewanted=print