3.14.2017

An Inexpensive Way to Do Universal Health Care

health care
I announced my own health care plan back in July of 2008. I put quite a bit of thought into it, but it was greeted with little fanfare. President Obama went on to win the election in November of that year and managed to get the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed into law. My plan would have been much cheaper, more effective, and less controversial. In his 2016 campaign, President Trump pledged to repeal and replace the ACA. Now that the Republican Congress is scrambling to come up with a suitable replacement their less-than-wealthy voters can stomach, I figured it was time to remind everyone about my plan.

My plan could not be much simpler. Atheists would receive universal health care just like what we find today in most Western democracies that rank higher than the U.S. in terms of health care quality (and there are several of them). This could easily be accomplished by expanding the existing Medicare system to cover all atheists. In essence, atheists would no longer need to worry about going broke due to excessive health care costs.

Meanwhile, religious believers would rely on prayer instead of any sort of health insurance. They are constantly telling us about how effective prayer is, so I can't imagine that there would be any resistance to utilizing it as the treatment of choice for all injuries and ailments. And because prayer is free, these religious believers would not cost the government or their employers anything.

Just think about how much money this plan would save taxpayers and those who employ religious believers! Those employers would have so much money left over from not having to subsidize the cost of religious believers' health insurance that they would be free to expand their workforce. The unemployment rate would plummet. We'd have plenty of money left over to build walls and deport anyone who dared to criticize our president.

What do you mean you don't think my plan would be popular with religious believers? If prayer works, as most religious believers claim it does, I don't see why they would be reluctant to rely on it for their health care needs. And if prayer doesn't work, well...they'd always have the option of setting aside their superstitions and embracing reality with the rest of us.