Nicholas D. Kristof’s column in this Sunday’s New York Times went live online today. In it he recounts the recent health struggles of his Harvard roommate, Scott Androes, who is battling prostate cancer without insurance:

We all make mistakes, and a humane government tries to compensate for our misjudgments. That’s why highways have guardrails, why drivers must wear seat belts, why police officers pull over speeders, why we have fire codes. In other modern countries, Scott would have been insured, and his cancer would have been much more likely to be detected in time for effective treatment.

Is that a nanny state? No, it’s a civilized one.

(via Stephen Hackett.)