How would you fix health care?

They stand on stage in front of a live audience and before millions of TV viewers. Each has expressed a desire to be president. Each wants your vote. You will bestow that precious gift upon the one with whom you most agree.

One way to do that would be to pretend for a moment you are standing alongside the candidates, being asked the same questions. Ignore the pressure and the blinding lights. As a starter, here is one taken from a recent televised Republican debate. How would you respond? Speak up.

“Let me ask you this hypothetical question: A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens; all of a sudden he needs it. Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?”

In the audio of the broadcast, one or two in the audience shouted out something that sounded like, “let him die.” Is that your vote? The response will draw upon your entire moral, religious, political and philosophical energy.

This is hard. Let’s make it even tougher. What if this 30-year-old in question was in a car accident? What if a blood alcohol test showed he was intoxicated? What if he had been speeding? How does that influence your answer?

Suppose further that in looking at his bank account, “makes a good living” really means he was stealing from his employer. Should that change your response?

What if in the very next intensive-care room is the woman whose car he totaled? She is a mother of four. She, too, doesn’t have insurance. In her case, her employer did not offer any. On the private insurance market she couldn’t find coverage because of prior health conditions. She is also in a coma. She wasn’t wearing her seat belt. She also failed to halt at a stop sign she didn’t notice because she was chatting on her cellphone.

She is a faithful member of a local congregation. It is a small church, not the largest in the neighborhood. Her medical bills are anticipated to reach over half a million dollars if she lives. Her hospital is a for-profit facility whose national headquarters is in another state. No, I am mistaken; her care is in a not-for-profit medical center that is part of a system run by a Catholic order.