Quality Healthcare for Americans, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Healthcare has been an issue of debate for decades.  Since the Nixon administration healthcare has been one of the largest issues during the candidates’ arguments.  To date, the Resolution 135 is still a guideline of the American Medical Association.  The health reform has evolved, still falling short of the necessary care that all individuals should be entitled to.  The bureaucracy associated with healthcare will not improve the quality; in essence it would diminish it.  Politicians today still are arguing the ethical and moral necessities of healthcare.  When such a large dollar amount is associated with a profession, there will always be a debate that coincides for what is right and wrong.  John McCain argued, “Every American should have access to quality and affordable coverage of their choice, including keeping their current coverage. American families — not government bureaucrats or insurance companies — should choose the coverage that best meets their unique needs.” (McCain 2008) Still, there has yet to be a system implemented that provides such care for all.

Human life and health cannot be equated to a dollar amount.  This is not an ethical option for making substantial profits at the cost of someone’s health and life.  However, healthcare has grown to be one of the most lucrative professions.  The healthcare providers, insurance, office administrators, and many other areas of this field continue to increase their salaries at the expense of their patients.  It’s not only moral; it is an ethical necessity to ensure a long and healthy life to every person, rich or poor. Stopping the spiraling cost associated with getting healthcare and restoring the doctor-patient relationship is a good starting point.  Implementing a system where the patients care is the number one priority, regardless of their financial status.  Failing to provide equal healthcare is one of the most unethical business practices to-date.  Every American Should Have Access to Quality Healthcare.

Kant’s Approach to Ethics

Immanuel Kant, (1724-1804) was a great philosopher who was known for defending his belief in respect for persons. He argued that any business that put money over people was simple immoral.  His argument made centuries ago still supports the fact that every American should have access to quality healthcare.  The healthcare industry has grown to be money based and driven profession where the patients are the ones who get left behind.  As Kant argued, human life is priceless.  The current healthcare policies and practices fail to support Kant’s views.

Kant’s 1997 work, The Metaphysics of Moral: The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue he debates the how human’s needs cannot be separated from their self-love.  Roughly translated this means that when a person’s in need, they seek help from others.  “That beneficence is a duty results from the fact that since our self-love cannot be separated from our need to be loved by others (to obtain help from them in the case of need), we thereby make ourselves an end for others… hence the happiness of others is an end which is at the same time a duty.” (Kant 1994)

This directly associates with the healthcare issue that society is facing today.  If an individual is in need of help, they turn to others for that need.  Healthcare providers use to be focused on the importance of their patients care.  That has devolved from human help and well-being to the profitability instead.

Insurance companies are one of the biggest participants in unethical practices associated with healthcare.  Denying coverage to the ones who need it most has become common practice.   Kant addressing this practice as well, in his 1985 Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals he states: “When we observe ourselves in any transgression of a duty, we find that we do not actually will that our maxim should become a universal law. That is impossible for us; rather the contrary of this maxim should remain as the law generally, and we only take the liberty of making an exception to it for ourselves or for the sake of inclination, and for this one occasion. Consequently, if we weighed everything from one and the same standpoint, namely reason, we would come upon a contradiction in our own will, viz., that a certain principle is objectively necessary as a universal law and yet subjectively does not hold universally but rather admits exceptions.” (Kant 1990)  Making exceptions to frivolous guidelines would affect the ultimate bottom line, which is their profit margin.  This is just one of the many reasons that insurance companies has grown to have such a bad name and are one of the biggest contributors to the unethical practices associated with the healthcare system.

Utilitarian Approach to Ethics

The Utilitarian approach to ethics is the belief that actions are right when they are beneficial and useful for the majority.  This is not an approach that is utilized in the current healthcare practices.  First, the utilitarian based manager would look at the potential consequences for making a potential choice or taking a specific action.  This is a comparison one thing versus another.   The doctor’s office would consider if this patient is turned away because they do not have the means to financially support their visit, the patient could get significantly worse.  Essentially the patient will suffer unnecessarily and it could cost them more money in the long run to seek the necessary treatment.

Another example of the utilitarian approach to ethics is a manager using positive or negative rights as a determining factor using the deontological ethics model or rule-based ethics would allow them to determine if they have an obligation or duty to act in a specific way.   If doctors, nurses, or facilities operated under this ethical practice, denying necessary care would not ever be a viable option.  The first priority would be to determine their obligation and duty to that patient.  They would not ask if they had enough money in the bank to pay for the care they need.  They would not inquire about their insurance coverage, they would provide the necessary care first and foremost, and then the rest would be secondary.   If the healthcare industry operated with the utilitarian approach, there would be no necessity for reform.

Social Responsibility

There is a social responsibility to provide necessary healthcare to all Americans.  Often the people affect the most are the ones who fall below the poverty line. These individuals are working hard to pay their Medicare and Medicaid insurance, and the cost associated with the coverage is substantial.  Also highly exploited are individuals who need it the most including poor, children, and elderly.  This just adds to the social responsibility to reinstate ethics to the healthcare profession.

There has been some change in healthcare reform in the past two decades.  The social responsibility to provide the necessary care for children’s well-being required change to the existing healthcare fields.  “The Affordable Care Act has already begun to end the worst insurance company abuses. Since 2010, children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied insurance.” (Healthcare 2012)  There are still many loopholes existing in providing the necessary coverage for all American’s however this is a good first step in the road to revision.   The government has been actively debating the need for change, and as time progressing there is hope for moral and ethics to once again be the governing agent for healthcare.

Analysis of Debate

Healthcare is and will probably always be a big area of debate.  The two sides of this debate are the people and the healthcare professionals.  There is also a significant amount of money associate with this profession, making it harder to implement any type of reform.  Healthcare professionals, insurance companies, and facilities all argue the fact there is a substantial cost associated with providing necessary care.  Refusing service to the individuals who cannot afford it is the only way for them to keep their doors open.  The argument the patient make is regarding the billion dollar profit that the healthcare industry makes yearly.  This discredits their prior argument to the cost associate with their care, and make it clear what the true underlying circumstance are about.

Conclusion

Every American Should Have Access to Quality Healthcare.  Society has an obligation to protect and ensure human life.  All laws are created and enforce to ensure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, however, the healthcare has since fallen outside of those realms.   The discrimination prevention measures that are currently in place just enforce the unethical means that healthcare profession operates with.  Insurance companies denying coverage based on frivolous factors, doctors refusing treatment, and facilities requiring immediate payment for necessary services are all ways that show ethics is no longer present in healthcare.  America’s current healthcare industry is need of an ethical and moral revision.  Focusing on the issues at hand and making the necessary changes can restore ethics once again, and return healthcare to what it was intended to be, for the well-being of the people.

References

McCain, John. (2008) Access to Quality and Affordable Health Care for Every American. New England Journal of Medicine 359:1537-1541

Kant, I. (1990) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Trans. by Lewis White Beck, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Kant, I. (1994) The Metaphysics of Moral: The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue(1797). In I. Kant Ethical Philosophy 2nd edn. Trans. by James w. Ellington, Indianapolis/Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company.

Healthcare (2012)  DNC Services Corporation.  Retrieved from http://www.democrats.org/issues/health_care