When looking at a political issue whether it be oil, health care, or any other political issue that exists, there is always what appears to be going on and what is actually going on.
What I See
When I see oil prices are high, I have noticed gas prices rise and have noticed the average consumer and business feeling some sort of financial pressure directly related to the rising costs of oil prices. I also notice that many oil companies are making recording breaking profits.
In regards to health care, I notice health insurance premiums that are expensive to many people, pills would be extremely out of me and my families reach if it was not for their insurance policy, and I notice many people who cannot afford health care in this country.
What I Want
I want to see a United States that is energy independent, energy efficient, and can use every resource available to us without disrupting our way of life. I would love to see a United States where people are not starving because they cannot afford to drive to the supermarket because of high-energy costs and to see businesses flourish, innovate, and create technologies that change the world without energy prices being a sole factor it that not happening. I would also love to see families having enough money to pay for energy costs as well as other basic needs.
In Regards to Healthcare, I would love prices to be affordable to as many people as possible in our country.
How to Accomplish These Goals
This post is not to divulge into a debate about policy; that is for another article.
Most debates tend not to be about what we want but how we go about getting what we want. Noticing symptoms of a problem is easy and diagnosing the remedy is always the most challenging part. To have sound policy on any issue, the first step is to make an effort to understand the underlying problem or problems and asking ourselves how we got here.
If energy is rising faster than our standard of living and it was not always…why is that happening?
If health care costs are rising…what is causing the prices to rise?
With so many moving parts to what is really going on behind the scenes who are we to say that we are seeing the whole picture. If we can acknowledge what we notice may or may not be the whole picture, our solution to fix the problem may radically change or maybe the solution will stay exactly the same. If we assume our assumptions are right automatically and that the way we see it is the only side of the story, we risk making one or more decisions that could ultimately lead to a completely new set of problems we did not even anticipate.
