Terrorist Attacks Show Need for Universal Health Plan, Caplan Says

"Everything" since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is different, "[e]xcept we still have the same, pathetic, immoral health care system we had the day before the terrorist assaults," Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, writes in an MSNBC op-ed. Even though the economy is "reeling" and the country is preparing for war, "this is precisely the time" to ensure that no American has to worry how they will pay for health care, Caplan says. He writes it is "time to do what's right and make sure that the old broken naive world of health care insurance is gone too. [And it is] time to ... guarantee access to health care to every American." Although past efforts to create a national health care plan have "foundered" because "private interests have defeated the public good," Caplan states that the country "can no longer afford to put the public good behind private interest." Thus, he advises President Bush and Congress to develop a plan to "mandate" that all Americans have access to health care through private plans, employer-sponsored coverage or government-backed vouchers. Caplan adds, "What we have done for our automobiles -- universally insure them -- we must now do for our neighbors." Noting that veterans are "promised" health coverage, Caplan concludes: "In the new world where each of us is a target and every American is a veteran, we must make the same promise to one another. Every American must know that regardless of what terrorists do there is a safety net for them and their families" (Caplan, MSNBC.com, 9/28).