For years, healthcare has become a selling point for many politicians hoping to be elected as president. It started with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and has carried its way into today’s inner workings of American politics. The idea of universal coverage has long met opposition from the public eye. This longwinded movement has been called a movement of “socialism” since Herbert Hoover proposed his healthcare agenda in 1945. Will America ever see reform or will our two leading parties and the media clobber the healthcare debate into nonexistence, again?

In town hall meetings, on nightly news and throughout towns across the United States, citizens are discussing (sometimes quite loudly) their opinions and beliefs. It is far too often that the public only sees the extreme cases of each like many of the views portrayed on Fox News and MSNBC. To get a fairer understanding of what average people are thinking about Obama’s healthcare option, I set out for views amongst the busy young adults of Juniata College.

It is true that conservatives are a hard find on campus, but clashing viewpoints should be honored because it is the only way common ground will be found. In asking campus liberals their opinions, I stumbled upon many similar responses. Meg Hourigan, an international politics and biology POE, calmly claims, “to deny anybody of basic healthcare is a crime.” She sees major problems with the way media and congress are presenting themselves to the general audience. “On one side they say it is universal healthcare while the other side calls it socialized medicine,” she states.

Marissa Redding, a first year zoology POE, believes that the United States should, “do it like Spain.” If our government incorporates Spain’s well-received services, America would have to be providing coverage for every citizen and giving mild protection to its tourists. Many Americans and Juniatans believe that and increase in any amount of coverage will cause a spiral of higher taxes, even though Obama promises that ninety-five percent of citizens will see none of these increases.

Matt Begley, a first year biology and pre-med POE, is a self-proclaimed “very conservative” individual. But Begley worries, like Representative Joe Wilson, that this plan will cater to the needs of illegal immigrants. He also states his worry that physicians will be lumped together and collectively paid, like that of many restaurant employees.

With such drastic measures of slander behind this healthcare reform, it is no wonder that President Obama’s promises are widely misunderstood and unsupported. Having strong opinions of opposition is an aspect that is running large but having opinions of resolution is a rationed commodity.

To be informed is to have ideas. No one should clearly accept Obama’s plan without questioning it, just as anyone opposing it should have a counter proposal. President Obama began his campaign and succeeded on the promise of “change.”

~Erin Kreischer, Juniata Online Journalist