Two points:
1) "voluntary, tax deductible, donation" presumably means one can donate charitably to an individual who needs a medical intervention of some sort, eg pay for your brothers kidney operation tax free - what's your objection to this sort of thing? Your vitriol is obscuring your message.
2) "many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted:", they are though aren't they? No where near all of them, but certainly many (I'm in the UK, perhaps people [contrary to all media reports] look after themselves better in the USA?).
Admittedly I was peeved when I read it, but you have to consider the reality, rather than the ideal.
You can already deduct medical expenses and charitable donations in the US, and "donating" to family members is ripe for tax fraud. It's just not realistic. But igoring that, the thrust of that part of the op-ep was that this would pay for all those who can't afford insurance is absolutely ridiculous -- basically just, like I said, dumb and really naive.
As for the second, while it may be true that "many" problems are self-inflicted in a technical sense, that rather vague statement is not the point. The point is what it implies. It implies that if everyone just ate their greens, we'd see less of a problem. Not only is it basically wrong (look up the stats). It's insulting because you're implicitly blaming a significant ("many") part of the healthcare problem on the people who... seek out healthcare. This is, again, stupid, and not the debate -- WHile people could take better care of themselves, they aren't ruining the system with hangnails and type 2 diabetes caused by Twinkies. That just isn't happening the way he implies. What we are talking about is a significant class of people who do not seek out healthcare because they cannot afford it.
