 I think Obama should hire more radiologists as political consultants. You can try charming or manipulating them, but those guys see right through you. So the Affordable Care Act is doing things, and other people are much better informed about what exactly is doing and why than I am. Here are some excellent YouTube videos, I highly recommend them, that's all I'm going to say about it. The debate about the ACA on the other hand has been raging ever since it was first proposed, and while there are a lot of really educated opinions about whether or not it will provide better healthcare for more Americans than the previous system, there's also a lot of meaningless shouting. Some people from internet forums to popular media continue raising the same points that make reasonable discussion about healthcare really difficult, either because they're unhelpful or distracting or even self-contradictory. I think that we'd all be a lot better off if we pointed them out and sort of agreed, like, let's not do that anymore. First, despite the Supreme Court ruling, there's still a lot of talk about whether or not there's anything in the founding documents of the United States that explicitly grants the federal government the power to intercede in healthcare. The short answer is no. Medicine isn't mentioned anywhere in those documents, and extending the right to life mentioned in the Declaration of Independence to healthcare is a really slippery slope. But for some reason it's never mentioned that when those documents were being written, medicine as we know it hadn't been invented yet. Like when George Washington contracted tuberculosis in 1751, the best medical advice that the best doctors could give him was to travel to Barbados in the hopes that the change in climate could help him stop coughing up blood. And then he got smallpox while he was there. There are tons of things that aren't explicitly mentioned by the Constitution that are regulated by federal bodies, like the FCC or the FDA. We discovered things like radio and prescription drugs decided that they were important and potentially problematic and that they should have federal oversight. It's totally irrational to look at a time where we didn't know what germs were and still thought that bloodletting was a good idea for any advice about what to do about modern medicine. I mean, even if we could ask the Founding Fathers about it, we'd probably want to keep them all on the opposite side of the room because, you know, smallpox. Second, under the US healthcare system, medical professionals are expected to be both selfless civil servants like police officers or firefighters and shrewd capitalists. There are actually state laws in Vermont and Minnesota that if you're an off-duty EMT or some other medical professional and you fail to stop an accident to render medical assistance if it's needed, you can be pulled over and fined or even jailed. And check out the editorial from the New York Times in the description that shames people who don't want to be doctors anymore because apparently they're not fulfilling their civic duty. Culturally, we treat them like they're supposed to be saints. However, in their nine to five, or if they're an ER surgeon in their nine to nine, medical professionals are expected to compete. As members of a free market, they're supposed to try and outbid their competitors and charge as much for their services as people are willing to pay according to supply and demand. It's kind of a conflict of interest and of ideology to expect doctors to be both selfless humanitarians and profit-chasing health barons. Also, quick side note, capitalism doesn't tend to do very well under either monopolies or inelastic demand. It does a fantastic job in the space in between, but if you're appendix ruptures, you're not going to be checking Yelp reviews for local emergency rooms. Finally, health care is an immensely important part of how we live and how we keep living, but it's sort of like air in that it's not a big deal unless you need some and you're not getting any. And sometimes in these debates, people forget that. People like me who have decent genetics and no chronic illnesses see a doctor maybe once every couple of years because we've got a bad cough. Health care just doesn't feel like a big deal to us. Unfortunately, many people like me who can afford decent health care and don't really need it don't take the extra step to empathize with people who can't and do. The world is a very different place for people who have to weigh the cost of making sure that nothing's wrong against the cost of what happens if something is wrong. And to be perfectly clear, that's not just poor people. Medicine is really, really expensive in the United States and even people who make good money can't always afford decent health insurance on their own. Yes, they may have the freedom to not be able to pay for anyone of hundreds of medical services, but functionally, they might as well have no choices at all. If they fall off a ladder, they're going to go bankrupt. End of story. And when it comes down to it, that's really the only thing that's worth discussing here. The empirical question of what gets the most Americans the best health care. Maybe we should follow the lead of the 30-some-odd countries that are ranked above us by the World Health Organization that have universal health care. Or maybe the free market is the sole driver of medical innovations. But getting Americans health care should be the beginning and end of that discussion. And it would probably be a lot easier to figure out what to do if people would stop judging up concepts that are either unrelated or unhelpful while we're trying to discuss it. It would also be a lot less confusing if the politicians who were staunchly against government involvement in health care weren't on government health care programs to begin with. Could you please just stop that? Will the Affordable Care Act move the United States at the rankings in health care? Should it be a right that's guaranteed by the Constitution? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to blah, blah, subscribe, blah, share, and I'll see you next week.