Originally Posted by Libertine

With mandatory health insurance, prices will go down. Of course, the government should also step in, and subsidize insurance for those who truly cannot afford it otherwise.

If it isn't mandatory, very little will change from the current situation.

What many Americans don't realize is just how bad the current situation is. Right now, America has the highest per capita health care costs in the world. It also has the highest rate of preventable deaths under 75 from treatable conditions of the top 20 wealthiest nations.

If America did as well as the best-performing nations (which are, of course, ones with universal health care), it would save 100000 lives a year. That's over twenty times the number of American soldiers to have died in Iraq over the past 5 years.

Obama undoubtedly knows this, too. By saying he doesn't want to make health insurance mandatory for those who can not afford it, he is effectively saying he will not make it affordable for everyone. That means the problem will not get solved. Costs will stay too high, tens of thousands of people will continue to die pointless deaths.

Obama's stance on this issue is pandering of the worst kind. He's pretending to "protect" the people who can't afford health care, but at the cost of their own lives.