Another health care followup

I was curious as to why there was so much chatter over that health care post; it appears that one of the folks over at Panagon picked it up. They even said I phrased something elegantly! Of course, they disagreed with the thrust of my point:

Here’s the problem with virtually any effort made to better yourself – it involves risk.  Law school in particular usually involves very tight mandated budgets, lots of loans and very little room for financial error unless you or your family is independently wealthy.

Well, sure. But there are lots of things that involve risk that could improve someone’s life that I don’t think I should be subsidizing. That’s my basic problem with the health care debate, and that asthmatic individual in particular: He thinks that my tax dollars should fund his desire to leave his upper-middle class job in order to go massively in debt to finance his acquisition of an upper class income. And he has the temerity to say that he’s pulling himself up by his bootstraps, etc., while he’s stealing from hospitals. Sometimes life isn’t fair: It’s not the responsibility of my pocketbook to level the playing field.

So look: If our anonymous hero wants to quit a stable, well-paying job with medical benefits (despite the fact that he already has a life-threatening ailment) while putting himself into massive debt in order to become qualified to enter a profession that he will almost certainly have trouble finding a job in after he graduates, fine, go with God. But don’t ask me to foot the bill for your silliness. Again: You made your choice, now you get to live with it.