Yes

by Tracy A. Moore

Created on: September 27, 2007

The United States absolutely needs to implement universal health care. It is a sad fact that the wealthiest country in the world is one of very few that does not make health care available to all of it's citizens. A vast majority of the uninsured persons in the United States are employed, but do not have benefits available to them through their jobs or they cannot afford the premium. It is also increasingly common that companies which used to offer benefits to employees no longer do so,due to prohibitive cost.

Another sad fact is that the government does offer some health-care assistance to citizens, but to qualify for the benefits a person has to be practically indigent. There are a lot of people who suffer on a daily basis with health conditions for which they receive no treatment because they do not have health insurance, but are not "poor enough" to receive government aid. The guidelines to qualify require that a person have almost no assets and that their income level fall below the poverty level. Even if a person were to meet these ridiculous requirements, unless they are a pregnant woman, have minor children, or have been declared disabled, they are still not eligible.

The disability issue raises yet another problem. To be declared disabled by the government, a person has to have well a well documented history of treatment of their condition. This presents another problem because many people with chronic illnesses are unable to sustain employment long enough to maintain health insurance coverage. Therefore there is either no documentation or insufficient documentation to demonstrate the need for disability benefits from the government. Therefore people in this situation are caught in a vicious cycle of trying to survive while working intermittently due to poor health.

Health care in the United States has been reduced to nothing more than big business, where compassion has all but disappeared. The portion of the Hippocratic oath that reads that the physician would keep the good of the patient as the highest priority are in many cases mere words. Universal health care does create some additional burden on the government and the taxpayers, however the loss of revenue which is created by the uninsured or under-insured is greater in the long run. How is this so?

Many patients visit emergency rooms for conditions that could often be treated by a family doctor. These patients do not have a family physician because they cannot afford to pay for visits out of their pockets and also because a lot of physicians will not accept a patient that does not have health insurance. So, the patient goes to the emergency room and never pays the bill, because sometimes it is the only option of care. This is a common occurrence which causes huge economic losses.

In addition to the losses created by unpaid emergency room bills are lost days of work by people unable to receive adequate medical care. The loss created by this situation reaches far and wide; from the employer loss of productivity and revenue, to the employee loss of income, and finally to the general loss to the national economy due to lost consumer spending. Despite all of the above being true, there are huge obstacles standing in the way of universal health care.

Insurance companies spend billions of dollars lobbying to protect their interests. Doctors are given incentives from the insurance companies for limiting time spent with each patient to maximize income. Drug companies spend billions of dollars promoting their newest, most expensive medicines. If, all of a sudden these billions were to disappear it would make those reaping the benefits of these billions of dollars very unhappy. Under a universal health care system, these conditions would not exist because medicine would revert to being a means for sick people to receive health care and would no longer be the cash cow that it is today.

There is also the issue of increased taxes to fund a national health care system. While this is a very real issue and concern, it would be one circumstance in which we would know that our tax dollars were being spent on something worthwhile. As it stands now, our tax dollars pay for wars, for overpriced items and services provided to our government buildings and officials, and on foreign aid. While I cannot say anything negative about foreign aid, I also think more of our tax dollars should be put to use in domestic aid.

If universal health care were put into place it could lead to positive change in many of the systems which most Americans view as broken. If citizens were guaranteed the right to quality medical care it would create a more productive society. Our current welfare system creates a huge problem in that a lot of welfare recipients would lose their medical care if they were to attain employment, even though the job may only pay minimum wage and not offer health insurance. This causes a lot of welfare recipients to stay on it even though they would rather work. This in itself is enough to give universal health care a very close look, because of the general economic growth that would be created as a result of millions of people returning to the work force. Despite some of the difficulties created by the system, it still appears to be a win win situation.

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