To have the best health
insurance in the United States you must obviously make a lot of money to be
able to afford it. Healthcare here seems to be more of a privilege for people,
only available to those who can afford it, rather than it being available for
everyone. Other countries however have in place a type
of healthcare that provides its citizens with medical
help whenever and wherever they need it. This is known as
Universal Health Care, which according to the World HealthOrganization, is defined as, “Ensuring that
all people can use the pro-motive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and
palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective,
while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to
financial hardship.” The United
States should put into effect a Universal Healthcare law so that public health
is improved and to decrease mortality rates.
Having
Universal Health care in the United States will benefit the nation as a whole
because we would be a much healthier country. The United States, as stated in ProCon, is one of the only developed
countries of the
34 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development who does not provide its
citizens with this type of health care, which is ironic since we are also the
country that spends the most on health insurance, yet our health care is the
least efficient. There are many diseases
and viruses that could be prevented from spreading or causing too much harm if
only health care was provided to everyone. People would be able to seek help
whenever they needed to, not fearing having to pay ridiculous amounts of money
on medical bills or being turned down. Many deaths would also be prevented,
since tens of thousands of people die due to not being able to afford medical
help.
According
to a 2009 study from Harvard researchers, "Lack of
health insurance is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths per year,"
take note that this was years ago, imagine how much higher the rate has become.
There are thousands of people who are left to die due to lack of health
insurance because they aren't able to afford it, and even if they go to the
hospital for help, they are neglected because they aren't able to pay the
medical bills. For example, in a documentary called Sicko, a
woman took her daughter to the hospital because she had a high fever but since
she didn’t have any health insurance they refused to care for her 3 year old
daughter and she passed away. Yet, in France, a woman with a similar problem
had her daughter cared for at no cost due to their Universal Health Care law.
It is extremely crazy,
how we think our country is so great yet we tend to care more about problems
outside of the country instead of helping the people here to be the best nation
in all aspects, we can be. We recently had a large expansion of health
insurance coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obama
Care, which as said in a P.N.H.P article,
if it is to work effectively, will insure an additional twenty-six million more
Americans by 2024. The United States pay way more money on health care than any
other country, yet the health insurance here, people's health and deaths due to
our "great" yet poor system, are worse than those countries who pay
much less. This type of health care system has proven to be successful in
countries who have it and it’s crazy how we, the U.S doesn’t have it, yet other
undeveloped countries do. Many people are still hesitant for the U.S to adopt
this policy because taxes will rise but I mean come on, it makes sense to pay
extra every year knowing that you are able to go to whatever hospital or doctor
and not get neglected help. The United States should establish a Universal
Health Care policy so that our nation as a whole is much healthier and to
decrease mortality rates caused to not being able to afford health insurance.
Cited Sources:
Andrew P. Wilper, Steffie
Woolhandler, Karen E. Lasser, and Danny McCormick, et al., "Health Insurance and Mortality in US
Adults," American Journal of Public Health, Dec. 2009
Hanning,
Hedda. "We Need Universal Health Care Coverage for All." We
Need Universal Health Care
Coverage for All. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
Kliff,
Sarah. "8 Facts That Explain What's Wrong with American Health
Care." 8 Facts
That Explain What's Wrong with American Health Care. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
"What
Is Universal Coverage?" WHO. World Health Organization. Web.
30 Oct. 2015.