Healthcare

Healthcare reform in general is something that I strongly support.  Considering that pretty much anything can be done better (nothing is perfect after all), reform is always a potentially good thing (and always a potentially bad thing if done wrong).  But our healthcare is something that badly needs the reform.  As for governmental involvement, I strongly believe that it is the government's sole responsibility to ensure that all of its people have the basics for life (well, everyone shares that belief, we all just have different views on "basics of life"), and I feel that basic, preventative healthcare is needed (meaning checkups and doctor visits, and various example) and the benefits that it provides make it a great investment (cheaper and so saves money, reduces sick days at work so is beneficial to companies, and so to employees, cause missing work means missing pay), and if anyone wants to go above and beyond to get acute coverage or any additional coverage, they are more then welcome to get that from the free market.  It's just like a minimum wage (but for healthcare) everyone gets the basic minimum.

The government should also bring in actual doctors and nurses to write policy, since they know what is best, and not doctors that were doctors over a decade ago and moved on to do something else (like work for the insurance companies or become lobbyists), but those that are actual doctors now (or at least very recently) and know the patient needs of now.  Then, the government should bring in business people that can specialize in implementing those policies in the most cost effective and least bureaucratic way possible.

This would cover for the government's direct involvement in healthcare for people.  But there is still another aspect that needs to be dealt with, regulation of the private sector.  The insurance companies in the USA spend more money on lawsuits and lawyers then any other nation's insurance companies.  There is hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in tests that doctors know are pointless, but know that if they don't do them, they risk being sued.  The risk of being sued and the wasted money from the wasted tests, and wasted lawsuits restricts doctors from doing their jobs.  We have good samaritan laws that protect those that try to save others (if you save someone's life by performing CPR, they can't sue you if you accidentally break one of their ribs in the process), but these laws don't get extended to doctors, whose entire job is saving and helping others.

Healthcare reform, if done right, would not cost the american people any additional money, and would in fact, save money.  Since with preventative care, the overall cost goes down, and because you are replacing the service from the private sector (of preventative care, they still provide anything above and beyond) to the public sector, and not creating a new service, the cost to the people is not being increased just moving around.