Drinking Age

The controversy of what age you should legally be allowed to drink alcohol has been a very controversial issue for a very long time. All 50 of the states in the United States have in law that no one under the age of twenty one is allowed to drink but there are minor exceptions in some states like if you are under parental supervision, at home, or it is for a medical purpose. In twenty nine states if you drink underage privately with parental consent it is allowed. In thirty states you are allowed to drink for religious purposes. In thirteen states you are allowed to drink for educational purposes. People who want the age to be lowered say that having in law that you can't drink until you are twenty one only makes drinking look even cooler and pushes drinking into private and not as controlled environments leading to more health and life endangering behaviors. People who oppose lowering the minimum drinking age from twenty one say that teens can not handle the responsibility of alcohol and that they are more likely to harm or even kill someone by drinking before they are twenty one. They back this up with the fact that traffic fatalities decreased when the MLDA increased. I think the drinking age should not be lowered because there is not reason for it. All that drinking does is lead to some kind of problem. There is no real benefit to drinking. It can lead to alcoholism, death from diseases, and drunkenness which leads to a lot more problems. If the age was lowered I think America would be in an even bigger mess then what we are in now. So, I think the age should stay the same.

Sources:
http://drinkingage.procon.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nj_ayQtv7I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qQzYUZ_MNU&feature=related

Health Care Reform

When Barack Obama started campaigning in 2008 he urged for a reform in health care because he thought that health care was a threat to our economy and should be a right for every American to have health care. So, in March of 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and they also passed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. President Barack Obama signed both of them into law. He also signed into law Executive Order 13535 which states that no federal funds are to be used for abortion services. These new laws reform our health care greatly. People who support the health care reform and these new laws say that it is a "historic victory" and a "landmark legislation". They also say that it will cut costs greatly, make health care more affordable, and protect consumers from unfair insurance practices. They propose that with this reform the nations debt by $100 billion by 2020 and by $1 trillion by 2030. President Obama said that tens of thousands of uninsured Americans with preexisting conditions will finally be able to purchase health care. The people who do not like the new reform say that it is a "socialist" and "unconstitutional" takeover of health care that will be raising the cost of health care and decreasing the quality of the health care we would get. Also, they say that over a ten year span this new bill will cost more than $2.5 trillion and will put the United States deeper into debt. They say there are a lot of questions that are unanswered that are very important for America to know. I think that health care should be a personal thing. I do not think that everyone should have the same health care because some people are poor and others are not. I also do not think that you should punish the people who have good health care because they have money and give them not so good health care just because they can not afford it.





Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6Pht8HdO8
http://healthcarereform.procon.org/
http://www.google.com/