It seems like this election has been marked by an earlier start on presidential campaigning. There have been a lot of issues discussed and debated, such as the war in Iraq. Not only have the candidates been espousing strong rhetoric about these issues, but the voters themselves have strong opinions on many of these issues as well.

However, one of the biggest issues is a major turn-off and bore to most of the public. Health care reform, which has been the center of many recent debates, is unbearably dull to the average college-age voter. Although it may not be nearly as exciting as other issues, I believe it is vitally important, especially to our age group.

The lack of interest may be due to the fact that many younger voters ignore health care issues because of their infrequent use of health care services for obvious reasons. But that is exactly why we should be paying attention to this election.

Some of the candidates are proposing a mandatory health insurance. Mandatory health insurance is based on the idea that we are required to have car and homeowners insurance. If something happens the burden shouldn’t fall on the taxpayer to cover the costs. This particular proposal is aimed at lowering the number of uninsured Americans (over 40 million), thereby reducing spending by the government and local hospitals. Since our age group is the biggest group of uninsured people, these issues directly affect you.

I believe it is crucial for us to wade through all of the partisan rhetoric in order to fix what is clearly not working. The United States spends over $2 trillion on health care. The United States has the highest spending in the world, and we also have the best medical technology. American Nobel laureates outnumber those from other nations two to one. However, our health care costs are spiraling so far out of control that the 40 million uninsured are unable to afford the state of the art medical technology.

We have the best of the best, but many of us cannot access it. Not only that, but it seems that the major pharmaceutical companies, which are currently the third most profitable industry in America, have kept drug costs high when they managed to get a provision in the last Medicare bill, which prohibited the government from negotiating prices. The government is the largest purchaser of pharmaceuticals, and now they are not allowed to negotiate.

So I would encourage each of you to do your homework before this upcoming election. I personally recommend www.health08.org. This is an election Web site that lists all of the candidates and their stances on the health care issue, as well as recent news involving the industry. This is a good place to find a concise overview of what candidates are saying.

These are issues that affect you directly. Whether you will soon be required to get insurance or your taxes will be raised in order to support state run insurance, you need to be educated and exercise the right to vote. Because if you haven’t got your heath, you haven’t got anything.