HALF A MILLIONAIRE

As usual, President Obama’s healthcare speech sounded very good tonight. I felt very emotional when he talked about Senator Ted Kennedy’s lifelong dream, universal healthcare for all Americans. In my heart, I was yelling: “yes, let’s do it.” However, my head disagreed because I was skeptical about his plan. Simply, I do not think we can afford it.

Some argue that if France, Norway, Canada and many other socialist nations are able to provide universal healthcare to their citizens, then we should be able to do the same. For me, I believe that it is easy said than done. For example, to cover healthcare cost, in Norway, the income tax rate is aboout 48 percent. There is also something called “tax on net wealth”, which means that the government can tax its rich citizens one additional time for having accumulated wealth, because it wants to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. When they are sick, they just go to a hospital and a doctor will treat them. Similarly, Canadians are very proud of their healthcare system because it covers everyone. In my opinion, the U.S. cannot afford universal healthcare (although I wish that we can) because we have a larger population (300 million) compared to Canada (33 million) and Norway (4.6 million).

Universal healthcare is nice, but it is not free. How do we finance the program? We can cut other programs to free up some money. We can apply for an interest-only loan with the China bank. We can just print more money, disregarding inflation. We can raise taxes on everyone because taxing just the rich will not generate enough money to support the program.  

In his speech, President Obama did not specifically point out what he would do to gather up enough money to fulfill his promise. I felt as though he just wanted us to trust him. I felt as though he just wanted us to do it, and we would deal with the financial consequences later when they arrive. As an American, he has it in his blood like all of us, the risk-taking spirit. We financed our houses with interest only loans and we successfully brought down our economy. Although we do not know exactly what the universal healthcare plan will bring down next, we are Americans and therefore we are not afraid to dream the American dream.

Personally, I am torn by the issue. Sometimes, I just want to follow my heart and prepare for the next economic crisis; if the dream becomes a reality, I will be happy and scared at the same time. obviously, I do not want to wish that universal healthcare will always be a dream because I know many Americans need it. All I can do is to hope that they will do the right thing because it is out of my hands.