"Who in the Health Cares About Our Well-Being Anyway?" ( A not-so-obvious response to our current Health Care situation)

Dear Mr. President Obama of the United States of America,

I get it.  You're pushing for Universal Health Care.  This new plan you've so proudly graced America with puts Health Care Coverage in the hands of the government.  And as much as your political mask covers up the idea of universality, by saying the privately-run organizations will be able to "continue doing business" and their patrons won't be "forced" to stop using them, do you honestly believe these companies will stay afloat?  Your new plan will draw people away from the private companies, drive up their prices, draw away more people, drive up more prices... all ending in these organizations going out of business.  That would not be good.  It would be like if the government decided to start selling cheap cars because Ford's prices were getting too jacked up... (instead they are being pumped full of money, but that's another rant).

(cue new perspective on the Health Care problem)

If you are so goddamn worried about the health of your people, why not just solve the problem by creating laws against the very things that make us sick in the first place? 

(And yes, I know the answers are capital and re-election, but I'm going to jam this down your throat anyway in hopes of American political reform... Heaven forbid we collectively realize how stupid American politics is anyway.  I mean really - voting?  We let everybody vote?  What a joke.  Everybody includes people who know nothing about the candidates.  An American citizen needs zero knowledge whatsoever to decide who will hold the highest held position in the nation?  Hahahaha.  And to think that the cutoff age for voting is 18 years old.  What a rule!  Many would say that high school government students know more about our country's politics than their vote-privileged parents.  Well, that is until the kids forget it right after they take their finals.  If anything needs reform, it's the way we choose our nation's leader.)


Mush.  Onward to my point.  I know you don't have too much time between now and your next political decision - oh wait, those were decided hundreds of years ago when your party was formed.  So much for change!

Really, though.  Health of our nation.  My 782nd attempt:

Here are the top five leading causes of death in America:
1. Coronary Heart Disease
2. Cancer
3. Stroke
4. Accidents
5. Lung Disease

I don't need to pull up any scientific figures or evidence to say that these leading causes of death can be decreased significantly by the banning of:

1. Alcohol
2. Cigarettes
3. Fast food (and the related)
4. Sitting on the couch, doing absolutely nothing, avoiding exercise

Oh?  What's that?  It's financially/physically/politically/(insert own adverb here if desired... "funlessly" is a good one) impossible to do these things?

"Damian, have you ever heard of prohibition!?!!?! We've already tried that you ninny!"

"Ban cigarettes?  It's my constitutional (cough) right to (cough) smoke whenever I (throat clear) damn well please!"

"Make it to the gym?  Dammit Damian!  I work so hard all damn day! All I want to do when I get home is lay on my couch and watch reality TV!"

"Damian... excuse me.  First off, no comment.  But off the record, Phil Morris brings in $50 billion every year.  Our government thrives off cigarette taxes."

Alright.  You've all made your points ever-so-clearly.  If America's culture has taught us anything, harming ourselves is completely in-line with the law.  It is our freedom to gamble with our lives through the over-indulgence of cigarettes, alcohol, unhealthy diets, sloth, and otherwise.  Short-term goodness with long-term consequence = part of our culture (comparison to American politics anyone?).

Hmmmmm.  We're allowed to harm our bodies to the full extent, yet one of our country's main concerns is Health Care.  Does anyone else see this as a problem?

Now onto your proposed solution (without the obvious political dress-ups):

Take money from all in order to help the sick become healthy.

This solution helps push us towards the proposed goal - affordable Health Care.  Fine.  I get that.  But why slap a short-term band-aid on a deep wound when stitches are the necessary, long term solution?  The logic in your fix is yucky.

So... "What should be done?!?!" you say.  Well, Mr. President, I'm glad that you've finally asked.  My answer:  Instead of fixing "Health Care," fix "health."  Let's get our people to lead better lives.  With a healthier population, America can worry less about it's Health Care problem.  You want to lower Health Care costs?  Lead a country of healthy people!  Problem solved.

And more opposition:

"People won't just stop smoking!  They won't just all the sudden start going to the gym!  Stop boozing?  Yeah right!  Bars are the center of social life in every city in the U.S.!!"

You're so right.  This is where all that Health Care money can be used in a more productive way...

Education.

The age of kids discovering cigarettes, alcohol, unhealthy food, laziness... it's getting lower and lower.  The government may have imposed a warning on the cigarette box that says "Cigarettes kill," but we all know that peer pressure easily trumps these labels.  And that's the obvious killer.  Take a look at laziness - it's becoming an everyday pastime with our PS3s, HDTVs, among others.  And with these children starting their downward spiral at such an early age, addictions and bad habits are becoming more and more prevalent.  The probability of kicking these addictions later in life also decreases.  Kids lose their potential for a healthy life before their true decision-making skills even begin to bloom.

Our children need responsible adults to show them how to lead a healthy life - or at least how to dabble in these vices, rather than dive.  They need to know the consequences of their behaviors.  Bring in a victim of an esophagus removal.  Have a 500-pound visitor physically show them how hard it is to live an overweight life.  Have a drunk driver in shackles show graphic pictures of a terrible crash they caused.  And this is just the beginning.  All the money that was going to be used for Health Care can be put towards a variety of programs.  I may not be an expert on teaching values to children, but there must be someone out there who is.  Find the strategies that work and the people who can execute them.  Then, fund them on a national level.

Yes, it's drastic.  But it's better to keep the kids healthy and traumatized rather than naive and worrying about who's going to pay for their liver transplant.

Show these kids early on how to be healthy, and they'll pass these values on to their children, and theirs and theirs and so on.  Solve the Health Care problem by uprooting, rather than chopping down the tree and leaving a stump.  Because if you don't attack a problem at it's core, it will keep coming back to haunt you.

American politicians - fix this problem the right way... the moral way... Don't do this politically.


Show Americans how to be healthy, rather than raise funds to fix their avoidable illnesses.  It may not be the popular decision, but remember, Mr. President...

You promised us change.  Not popularity.  Now give it to us.


Respectfully,
Damian

P.S. This is was not meant to bash you specifically, Mr. President.  You're just the easiest target.  Personally, I think you're doing a great job representing America.  It's the scope of our politics that needs reform.  Thank you.