We Don’t Let People Die–If We Can Help It
Neal Starkman
Recently, a young lifeguard on a Florida beach was notified by frantic beachgoers that a man in the water several hundred yards away was in trouble. The lifeguard knew that the man was in a section of the beach that was not in his jurisdiction, and swimmers in that section knew that no lifeguard was on duty. Nonetheless, the lifeguard radioed his colleagues that he was going to help the man and that someone else should cover his own area.
The lifeguard did in fact help the man, the man is recovering, and the lifeguard was promptly fired for disobeying the rules. Only after a huge media thumping did the company offer the lifeguard his job back, which he politely declined.
The lifeguard is now considered something of a hero, and rightly so. He chose to break the rules in order to save a man’s life. Who would do anything different? Who would let a man die merely because it was the man’s fault?
Let us now enter Analogyland. Some people decide to forgo buying health insurance. It’s not because they can’t afford it; it’s because they choose not to spend the money. So let’s say a man in this category is walking across the street by his home and gets hit by a car. The ambulance comes speeding up and finds that he has no health insurance. What happens? Should the ambulance turn around and leave him to bleed to death in the street? After all, the man knew the consequences of not buying health insurance. We owe him nothing.
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http://blog.seattlepi.com/nealstarkman/2012/07/05/we-dont-let-people-die-if-we-can-help-it/