I could rail away at you with a myriad of statistics and numbers. I could make long-winded ethical arguments. Instead I'll just tell you the stories of people I know and love.

My girlfriend is 23 years old, she just graduated from college and doesn't have a full-time job that will give her benefits. It's no fault of hers, it's just the world we live in. She has absolutely no way of paying for the kind of costs that can be accrued through even a simple trip to a doctor or dentist.

If I get a cavity I'll go to a dentist, and my insurance will pay for it. No sweat. If she gets a cavity though, she can't afford a dentist.  She'll have to wait until it become a serious problem, like an abcess, and then wait in the ER for hours to be seen.  Guess what? That will cost the American taxpayer more than if she could just go get it filled while it's a simple cavity.

I would imagine getting a cavity filled would cost the insurer a few hundred dollars. How much does a few hours with an ER doctor performing minor surgery and pumping you full of antibiotics cost? A whole lot more, I'm sure.

The system we have now doesn't work. We spend more on health care than any other nation on earth, I think it's up to about 13% of our GDP. I have to wonder how much of that comes from the uninsured waiting for minor health problems to become major enough to warrant a trip to the ER.

Why doesn't anybody else see that the best way to avoid health care costs is to avoid health care costs? If we allow everyone access to small, preventative procedures we'll surely save a bundle when those $100 operations save us from having to eat the cost of their $10,000 operation that could have been prevented.