I admire your optimism. I think it’s seriously misplaced, but you have it and that’s a good thing.

We could drive up the deficit specifically for health care, and you’d have the same problem. Because having the money and wanting to spend the money are two different things. There is always going to be someone who needs more help than you. And the government is always going to put them first. I’m not saying they shouldn’t. I’m saying if they’re going to do that, they should grant you the ability to help yourself. Because that person with 50% mobility may be waiting on someone with 40% mobility. The person with 40% mobility may be waiting on someone with a spinal injury. It snowballs. Meanwhile, both the person with the 50% mobility and me with 75% mobility are being impacted and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. More funding does not change that, because the problem is not how much money the government has but where the government is choosing to spend it. And if the government chooses not to spend that money on my surgery, tripling the amount of money the government has access to doesn’t necessarily change that.

The problem was never the government can’t afford my surgery. The problem was the government decided my surgery wasn’t needed, or a priority. In fact, the entire idea behind universal health care was never about whether or not the government could afford it. The assumption was it could. The idea was always about prioritizing who needed that universal health care most. In other words, you were promised access. You weren’t promised when. And if you have access to a replacement knee in two years, well, the government met its obligation. Does it help you? Yes, in two years. What do you do until then? Not the government’s problem.