Emily Schlichting writes about U.S. healthcare:

When I was 17, I started experiencing a lot of seemingly unrelated symptoms. None of my doctors could figure out what was causing them. Finally, after two years of undergoing MRIs and CAT scans, visiting specialists and a week-long stay in a hospital my freshman year of college, I was diagnosed with Behcet’s Disease, a very rare auto-immune condition. This was a lot to deal with at 19.       USA Today

I’m skipping the political commentary in the article to focus instead on the personal. She also writes the following:

With health insurance coverage tied to the job, career opportunities can become limited. I had planned to work at a non-profit for a couple of years before I went back to school. But that was no longer an option because I would have dropped off my parents’ insurance plan.

And it hit me. For the rest of my life, I would have to be careful not to ever drop off an insurance plan. If I did, an insurance company would classify my disease as a pre-existing condition and could deny me coverage.

Because I’ve written about the personal cosequences of healthcare policy before, some readers might already know that my nephew has a similar situation. He has Marfan’s Syndrome and, until passage of the Affordable Care Act, he was unable to get health insurance coverage, even for catastrophy. Now he can, and he pays dearly for it, but his coverage depends on the act, because chefs like him typically don’t work in jobs that offer health insurance. And, if they do, he faces the same career-limiting choices that Emily does.

No matter what your politics, let’s not forget the personal stories like Emily’s and my nephew’s while we search for better health care for Americans.

Emily concludes: “No one should have to live with that sort of uncertainty and fear. No one should have her career options limited because she can’t afford to risk being without heath insurance.”

The debate today seems to center around “Should health care should be a privilege or a right?” But for many people, such as Emily and my nephew, the issue at hand is whether or not you even can get any coverage and then, if you do, what career-limiting obstacles must you endure.

Dustin Denkins has fueled his interest in renewable energy into a successful company that makes portable generators. Except he doesn’t use fuel. In 2010, Denkins created Suburb Solar, Inc., which he operates out of his solar-powered, off-the-grid home in Cooks, a small town near Manistique.       MLive

Some questions that touch on issues I often blog about:

• Is this a good example of continuing Michigan design and manufacturing prowess?
• Is this indeed a viable alternative energy application?
• Did the entrepreneur receive any available government funding or is this venture financed completely by private investment?

 Suburb Solar Web Site

This is not a posting about the possible dangers and potential negative consequences of fracking. That story has been in the news a lot, and I’ve posted the major concerns several times.

I’m writing today about an aspect of fracking that is reported much less frequently. The support of the U.S. Department of Energy that helped make fracking possible.

As T. Boone Pickens has pointed out, people have been using pressurized fluid to split open rocks underground since the 1940s. But it wasn’t until very recently that the U.S. natural gas industry, with support from the Energy Department, managed to refine their “fracking” techniques to drill into shale rock and extract natural gas and oil. Lots and lots of natural gas and oil.

In the past few years, the shale gas boom has upended the U.S. energy landscape. With large and small companies drilling wells around the country, cheap natural gas is now displacing coal as the nation’s top source of electricity. That, in turn, has helped contribute to a drop in U.S. carbon-dioxide output: According to the International Energy Agency, the United States has cut its emissions 7.7 percent since 2006, more than any other country or region in the world.       WaPo

My concern with this under reporting is that often government assistance like this is largely unseen and unnoticed by most Americans. Here is an important example of government support of a technology that has actually resulted in lower carbon emissions, less reliance on foreign oil as well as a significant drop in the price of natural gas.

Often credit for these benefits is given solely to private industry, while government is demonized for getting in the way of progress. In fact, it’s often government subsidizes that enable such private investment, especially when the risks are too great for private enterprise to bear.

For me, most of the current debate over private versus public investment misses the point. It’s often a partnership not just a battle. Let’s debate about the proper role of government investment, not try to eliminate it entirely.