Should the United States Provide Health Insurance for Everyone, Research Paper Example

In a list of the most industrialized nations, the United States is yet to adopt a government financed health care system that has a universal coverage.  In other countries such as the neighboring Canada, the citizens are covered while the government seems to spend very little than the United States spends in the provision of partial coverage. With so many arguments for and against the health coverage for all, it is important to deduce the main points of the opposing and proposing regimes within the health care debate, so that the true stress of the laid information can be ascertained (OECD Health Data, 2009).

In the arguments for health coverage reform for all, there is the intensity that it would subsidize the insurance for low income earners, who don’t have an employer provided health care coverage. A universal coverage is seen a vehicle upon which includable savings and myriad benefits will be made, which does include making some low preventive cost care availed to many so that those not insured don’t have to wait until their ailments are past critical stage to go to an emergency room, a place where the cost of treatment is highly subsidized by very high premiums for the insured consumers. Additionally, so many uninsured young individuals say the cost of insurance is just too high, when an outbreak such as that of swine flu affects most this specific population. In case of any pandemic they suffer the most and thus the need for a universal system to cater for this group of the population, which is also the richest manpower for any progressive nation. A single universal coverage is quite accountable to the patients since anything that is administered publicly has so much transparency included more than is the case with private insurers who hide any information to safeguard their business from public scrutiny.

Another argument for universal health care is the fact that sticking too much with an employer based kind of system is a drag on the nation’s economy. This is because employer sponsored coverage keeps a working people from the kind of jobs they want just for the coverage. Another serious argument for universal insurance is that health cost keeps on growing tremendously each year more than any other sector of the economy, which has been seen as an unsustainable trend for an economy that wants to grow and pacify the effects of the recession. Every time workers receive a rise the highest percentage translates to healthcare (Volsky, 2009). With a universal care, too much spending on healthcare will actually start dropping after every year since high cost of health outstrips a year’s size of income growth of a country. The essence of the universal health insurance is to give the right to health to each and every citizen, and not a facility for the rich and those employed, as it is.

The opposers to universal health plan have some crucial points to raise that shape their plea. Firstly, they understand that a public plan might arbitrary reduce the costs but if there is no developed mechanism to monitor the healthcare’s quality, it will drastically go down and won’t help anybody. The public plan might also make many Americans not to honor their physicians’ appointments since the lowered payments will definitely make it hard and unaffordable to see the doctors. There might be the risk of rising costs that the economy might not be able to sustain since the government is creating lots of misperception on the person paying the bills (U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, March 24, 2009). This is because consumption will increase as there is the thought that another is paying the bill and they will visit more often. Since with the government offering healthcare it is not possible to have side by side kind of competition, it will be unfair to the private insurers as many people turn to the public plan since it is cheaper, throwing the private insurers out of business. With a lot of expenses expected, the proposed taxes will be onerous more so in times of recession, falling on small businesses, manufacturers, families and cost the nation millions of jobs and bankrupt states since it is so expensive. Also, conservatives have continued contending that a government financed regulation will consequently cripple innovation as costs are driven up. Since the patients are given the chance to control their own health care payments and sustainable medical services they get, it is feared that after abdicating the responsibility to the government they will lose all the rights accompanying it.

In conclusion, the high cost of the proposed universal health insurance will not cloud the fact that lives are being lost and the right to life and health care being curtailed. Maybe a proposal where all the stakeholders gain might be the right choice, but the current heat might not allow for a non-partisan plan that will make everybody go home happy. In fact, the biggest hurdle in reforming the health care is that the population that is easily covered has already been done so by SCHIP, Medicaid and Medicare, while the gap left is the one that is quite hard to cover.

References

Adam Smith (2009). “Is This a Near Riot or a Health Care Forum?” St. Petersburg Times, Retrieved Aug. 6, 2009, from www.tampabay.com

U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee (2009). A Government-Run ‘Public’ Health Insurance Plan: Why Doctors, Hospitals, and Patients Will Lose. Retrieved March 24, 2009, from http://rpc.senate.gov

OECD Health Data (2009). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, June 2009, from http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2649_34631_12968734_1_1_1_37407,00.html

Volsky, I. (2009). Jacob Hacker: Stripping Away ‘Inherent Advantages’ From a Public Plan ‘Is At Odds With True Competition. The Wonk Room blog, Center for American Progress, April 9, 2009, from   http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org