Politics

Bad news today – the Supreme Court ruled that the police have a right to arrest after asking for one’s identity, even if there is no probable cause. “The Supreme Court has again given police greater power to stop and question suspects, ruling Monday that a Nevada cowboy could not refuse to give his name to officers who tried to question him along a roadside.” Further Info on CNN

This was a real blow to privacy and civil rights advocates. If you haven’t heard of the case, this was a rancher in Nevada named Douglas Hiibel that was hanging out by the right side of his truck, cooling down after an argument with his daughter. The police came up and started asking questions. He asked if he was parked incorrectly – they said no – and then they kept asking for his ID. He asked why and they wouldn’t tell him. So he didn’t say anything. A few minutes later he was being arrested and the police were soon dragging his daugher out of the truck.

The Issue

One of the problems we have in this country is that we have a lot of people that don’t have health insurance. There are lots of reasons for this. Sometimes the response is “well they can always go to the county hospital.” I think this is a bad response because visits to the county hospital are usually only for emergencies and don’t include checkups and preventative care (e.g. cancer screening, blood tests, etc).