Ask Mr. Smartypants

Attending the town hall meetings of Rep. Bob Inglis and Sen. Jim DeMint on Thursday helped me see the issue clearly: We must stop listening to people, on either side, who engage in only half of the American conversation.

Inglis made this point beautifully. Asked whether he believes health care is a right, he said it is not, but he immediately addressed the other half of the conversation, saying he has "an obligation to care for the least of these among us, helping them with food, clothing and shelter."

Exactly. No one has any right to demand anything from me, but I have an obligation to provide for the less fortunate.

If you think it's OK for broken bones to go unset in America, then you're not part of the real conversation. If you would deny a poor person with an infection three bucks worth of penicillin, then you're not part of the real conversation.

You have a right to your opinion, but we're trying to have a civilization here. The greatest, richest, most philanthropic country in history doesn't let people die from easily treated problems.

But if you think the health insurance companies should be shut down, the doctors should all work for the government and no one should have better care than anyone else, you're not part of the conversation. We're trying to have a free nation here, and I'll buy ritzy health care if I want to.

And when we get the selfish, racist and xenophobic folks shushed, and we get the leftist, wealth-hating big-government loving freaks quiet, we can have the real conversation.

The real conversation is about levels of care, and delivery systems. The health care that needs to be available to all people should be about as good as government cheese and must be delivered via a cheaper method than emergency rooms.

Ban the dispensing of non-critical care in emergency rooms and set up government-run doc-in-a-boxes, urgent care centers open very long hours, one per county. Set up specialty offices, for cancer and the like, every 10 counties. Staff them with physicians paying off their student loans via a few years of service.

The lines would be long, the drugs generic, the service grumpy, the decor horrid. I wouldn't go there, because I have great health insurance. My company wouldn't cancel my insurance because poor people were allowed to get generic blood pressure medicine or an X-ray at a clinic. It would be cheaper than emergency rooms flooded with the uninsured seeking painkillers, stitches and antibiotics.

Health insurance carriers won't be destroyed by the public health insurance option because there won't be one.

Poor people dying for lack of a reasonable amount of medical treatment is not an acceptable option in America. We have the responsibility to do better. Single-payer health care is not an option in America. We have the right to ask for, and buy, more.

I pay taxes, and I say if someone's poor and hungry, give them a big, cheap hunk of cheese. If they're poor and sick, get them basic treatment.

Not because they deserve it, but because it's my obligation.

America is at its best when citizens and government pay attention to rights and responsibilities in equal measure.