Paul Scott comment: What health care and a new Decorah elementary school have in common

(A comment by decorahnews.com's Paul Scott):

"I have been thinking about two issues that you wouldn't think are related: finding a location for a new Decorah elementary school and coming to an agreement on what the country's health care insurance system ought to look like.

I have commented before about my frustration with the reaction to proposed elementary school locations in Decorah: how people will say of a downtown location "It has too much traffic!" but then will say of an edge of town location "It's too far away."

Once again, if you want the convenience of a downtown location, it's going to have traffic issues because it's a convenient location. If you want seven acres of property that doesn't have traffic issues, it will be on the edge of town or in the country.

But that defines our society--we want it all and we don't want to have to make choices.

Which brings me to health care insurance coverage. We want our health care insurance to cover everything--and we want it to cost less than what we're paying now!

In short, we want it all--but we don't want to make choices. However, choices are what is required. The more we want our health insurance to cover, the more it will cost. If we want our health insurance to cover just a few important benefits, it will cost less.

But those are choices many Americans don't want to face. President Trump, accurately reading the mood of the public, said before the election that his new health insurance plan would cover everybody and would be a "lot less expensive."

After getting elected, he said health care coverage "is complicated." He's right--and that's because when you make health insurance less expensive, people will have to pay more of the cost, and when you make it cover more health care, it gets more expensive.

But that's not a popular statement to make these days. We know what we want--we want it all and we want it at a cheaper price."