by Mathias Scriptor

Created on: June 09, 2010

Health care reform has been a topic of interest in the United States for almost a century. After careful research, this author can expertly make several conclusions from a history steeped in resistance. This author firmly believes in the necessity of health care reform in the United States through two main rationales: morality and culture.

The United States has always prided itself in being a gracious and empathetic nation - one need look no further than the massive relief efforts in the destructive wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, this author questions the stiff and continued resistance to a health program which would benefit fellow countrymen. In 2008, researchers from the the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine conducted a survey which tallied deaths by country which they viewed preventable. The study claims to be an accurate measurement of health care effectiveness and responsiveness. Among the countries surveyed, France, Japan, and Australia - all of which employ a nationalized health care system - ranked in the top three.

The United States of America, which had 101,000 preventable deaths, ranked very last in the survey (Dunham, W 2008). This statistic should not only arouse America’s attention to the potential benefit of nationalized medicine, but also reveals an alarming lack of morality among the general population.  In addition, some Americans are being denied coverage due to a preexisting condition. This author is afflicted by one such condition, and could not comprehend a life in which his daily treatments were not easily accessible. This author recognizes a disturbing trend plaguing the general public: the obsession with money. Are we as a country so consumed by consuming that we neglect the needs of fellow Americans? Do we place ‘things’, material possessions, above the health of our neighbors? Have we as a nation lost all sense of empathy?

Without a doubt, democracy in the United States is unique in every sense of the word. It allows for, among other traits, the common citizen to enact change, however miniscule, upon the political landscape. It is this feeling of empowerment that has been the catalyst behind some of the most successful and famous people, legislation, and events in the United States - it is a fundamental pillar upon which the country is built. However, the political culture in the United States has developed to a point at which any mention of a ‘government-run program’ leads

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