Poor health is often the first link in a chain of increasingly worse hardships, including job loss, bankruptcy and homelessness, but access to affordable health care can disrupt that chain of events, argued former Congresswoman and Better UTAH Board Member Karen Shepherd in a weekend op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Our health is the keystone to our families’ security; those secure families together combine to provide for the economic security of the state. If parents aren’t healthy, kids aren’t healthy. If kids aren’t healthy, teachers aren’t able to reach them in the classroom. This chain of events causes the tax base to suffer and the social burden to grow. The absence of basic health care in our society lowers the general standard of living for the whole society.
Though not a perfect solution, the personal and societal burden of poor health can be lifted by enacting Governor Herbert’s Healthy Utah Plan.
Gov. Herbert’s Healthy Utah Plan is the second best option. It covers almost as many Utahns and it works through the private sector. A recent poll revealed that 88 percent of Utahn’s supported the Governor’s Healthy Utah Plan over doing nothing, while a full 70 percent favored it outright. For the sake of the long term economic health of Utah and its citizens, it is time the Legislature listens and acts upon what it hears.
The full op-ed can be read here.