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Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America

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Introduction

Problem statement, why healthcare should be free, why healthcare should be paid, works cited.

The US government has historically taken a keen interest in the health of its citizens. As far back as the beginning of the 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt declared that “nothing can be more important to a state than its public health: the state’s paramount concern should be the health of its people” (Gallup and Newport 135). Despite these, the United States is classified as the nation with the most expensive, and yet inefficient, health care system among developed nations.

An expensive health care system translates to an increasing proportion of the population being unable to access the much needed medical care. The New York Times reports that according to census survey carried out in the year 2007, an estimated 45.6 million people in the USA were uninsured and hence unlikely to receive comprehensive medical care from hospitals (1). Due to the perceived inefficiencies, there has been agreement that the current health care system is faulty and therefore in need of radical changes to make it better.

Majority of American’s are greatly dissatisfied with the current health care system which is extremely expensive and highly inefficient. While an effective system can be deemed to be one which is efficient, acceptable and at the same time equitable, the current system is lacking in this attributes.

The aim of this paper will be to analyze the effects that free health care system in America would have. This paper will argue that a health care system which guarantees free health care for all Americans is the most effective system and the government should therefore adopt such a system.

Free health care would result in a healthier nation since people would visit the doctors when necessary and follow prescriptions. Research by Wisk et al. indicated that both middle and lower class families were suffering from the high cost of health care (1). Some families opted to avoid going to the doctor when a member of the family is sick due to the high cost of visiting the doctor and the insurance premiums associated with health care.

In the event that they go to the doctor, they do not follow prescriptions strictly so as to reduce cost. Brown reveals that “60 percent of uninsured people skipped taking dosages of their medication or went without it because it cost too much” (6). Such practices are detrimental to a person’s health and they cost more in the long run.

The last few years have been characterized by financial crises and recessions which have negatively affected the financial well being of many Americans. In these economic realities, the cost of health care has continued to rise to levels that are unaffordable to many Americans. This loss of access to health care has led to people being troubled and generally frustrated. A report by Brown indicates that the price for prescription drugs in the US has escalated therefore becoming a financial burden for the citizens (6).

The productivity of this people is thereby greatly decreased as they live in uncertainty as to the assurance of their health and thereby spend more time worrying instead of being engaged in meaningful activities that can lead the country into even greater heights of prosperity. Free health care would lead to a peace of mind and therefore enable people to be more productive.

Since medical care is not free, many people have to make do with curative care since they cannot afford to visit medical facilities for checkups or any other form of preventive medical care. This assertion is corroborated by Colliver who reveals that many people are opting to go without preventative care or screening tests that might prevent more serious health problems due to the expenses (1).

Research shows that approximately 18,000 adults die annually due to lack of timely medical intervention (The New York Times 1). This is mostly as a result of lack of a comprehensive insurance cover which means that the people cannot receive medical attention until the disease has progressed into advanced stages. This is what has made medical care so expensive since “sick patients need more care than relatively healthy ones” (Sutherland, Fisher, and Skinner 1227).

This is an opinion shared by Sebelius who reveals that 85% of medical costs incurred in the country arise from people ailing from chronic conditions (1). She further notes that if screened early, these diseases such as diabetes and obesity can be prevented thus saving the medical cost to be incurred in their treatment. It therefore makes sense to have a health care system that makes it possible for everyone to access preventive care thus curbing these conditions before they are fully blown.

While most people assume that free health care will result in better services as more people will be able to access health care, this is not the case. The increase in people who are eligible for health care will lead to an increase in the patients’ level meaning that one may have to wait for long before receiving care due to shortage of medical personnel or the rationing of care.

A European doctor, Crespo Alphonse, reveals that when health care is free, people start overusing it with negative implications for the entire system (AP). In addition to this, free health care would invariably lead to cost cutting strategies by hospitals.

This would lead to scenario where finding specialized care is hard and the rate of medical mistakes would increase significantly. As a matter of fact, a survey on Switzerland hospitals found that medical errors had jumped by 40% owing to the introduction of mandatory health insurance (AP). While it is true that free health care will increase the number of people visiting the doctor, this may be a positive thing since it will encourage preventive care as opposed to the current emphasis on curative care.

Free health care is a move towards a socialistic system. As it is, the US is a nation that is built on strong capitalistic grounds. This is against the strong capitalistic grounds on which the United States society is build on. While detractors of the private insurance firms are always quick to point out that the firms make billions of dollars from the public, they fail to consider the tax that these firms give back to the federal government (Singer 1).

Free health care would render players in the health industry such as private insurance companies unprofitable. Free health care will bring about a shift from a profit oriented system to a more people oriented system. Without money as a motivation, research efforts will plummet thereby leading to a decrease in the medical advancement as investment in research will not be as extensive (Singer 1).

The Associate Press reveals that doctors may also lack to be as motivated if they are no incentives and thereby the quality of their work may weaken (1). As such, a free health care system would have far reaching consequences for the economy of the nation since the health care industry is a profitable industry for many.

The Healthcare system is one of the most important components of the U.S. social system since full productivity cannot be achieved without good health. This paper has argued that a free health care system would be the most effective system for America. To reinforce this assertion, the paper has articulated the benefits that the country would accrue from free health care.

With free health care, all Americans would be able to access health services when they need it leading to increased quality of life. In addition, many people would make use of preventive healthcare services, therefore reducing the financial burden that the expensive curative services result in.

The paper has taken care to point out that free health care has some demerits, most notably of which is overloading the health services with a high number of patients. Even so, the observably advantages to be reaped from the system far outweigh the perceived risks. As it is, decades of reform on the US health care system have failed to provide any lasting solution to the problem.

Making health care free for all may be the strategy that will provide a solution for the ideal health care system that has thus far remained elusive. From the arguments presented in this paper, it can irrefutably be stated that free health care will result in a better health care system for the country.

Associate Press. (AP). Europe’s free health care has a hefty price tag . 2009. Web.

Brown, Paul. Paying the Price: The High Cost of Prescription Drugs for Uninsured Americans. U.S. PIRG Education Fund, 2006.

Colliver, Victoria. “Jump in middle-income Americans who go without health insurance,” San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate), 2006.

Gallup, Andrew, and Newport Francis. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion . Gallup Press, 2005. Print.

Sebelius, Kathleen. Health Insurance Reform Will Benefit All Americans . 2009. Web.

Singer, Peter. Why We Must Ration Health Care . 2009. Web.

Sutherland, Jason., Fisher Elliott, and Skinner Jonathan. “Getting Past Denial – The High Cost of Health Care in the United States” . New England Journal of Medicine 361;13, 2009).

The New York Times. The Uninsured . 2009. Web.

Wisk, Lauren. High Cost a Key Factor in Deciding to Forgo Health Care . 2011. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 12). Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America. https://ivypanda.com/essays/free-health-care-in-america/

"Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America." IvyPanda , 12 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/free-health-care-in-america/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America'. 12 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/free-health-care-in-america/.

1. IvyPanda . "Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/free-health-care-in-america/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Should Healthcare Be Free? Essay on Medical System in America." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/free-health-care-in-america/.

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Health Care in the United States, Essay Example

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In the United States, there has long been discussion about the quality and nature of the delivery of healthcare.  The debates have included who may receive such services, whether or not healthcare is a privilege or an entitlement, whether and how to make patient care affordable to all segments of the population, and the ways in which the government should, or should not, be involved in the provision of such services.  Indeed, many people feel that the healthcare in this country is the best in the world; others believe tha (The Free Dictionary)t our health delivery system is broken.  This paper shall examine different aspects of the healthcare system in our country, discussing whether it has been successful in providing essential services to American citizens.

The delivery of healthcare services is considered to be a system; according to the Free Diction- ary (Farlex, 2010), a system is defined as “a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.” This is an apt description of our healthcare structure, as it is compiled of patients, medical and mental health providers, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, insurance companies, and many other parties that are reliant on each other and that, when combined, make up the entity known as our healthcare system.

Those who believe that our healthcare system is the best in the world often point to the fact that leaders as well as private citizens from countries throughout the world frequently come to the United States to have surgeries and other treatments that they require for survival.  A more cynical view of this phenomenon is that if people have the money, they are able to purchase quality care in the U.S., a “survival of the fittest” situation.  Those who lack the resources to travel to the U.S. for medical treatment are simply out of luck, and often will die without the needed care.

In fact, reports by the World Health Organization and other groups consistently indicate that while the United States spends more than any other country on healthcare costs, Americans receive lower quality, less efficient and less fairness from the system.  These conclusions come as a result of studying quality of care, access to care, equity and the ability to lead long, productive lives.  (World Health Organization,2001.) What cannot be disputed is that the cost of healthcare is constantly rising, a fact which was the precipitant to the large movement to reform healthcare in our country in 2010.  More than 10 years ago, the goal of managed care was to drive down the costs of healthcare, but those promises did not materialize (Garsten, 2010.) A large segment of the population is either uninsured or underinsured, and it is speculated that over the next decade, these problems will only increase while other difficulties will arise (Garson, 2010.)

When examining the healthcare system, there are three aspects of care that call for evaluation: the impact of delivering care on the patient, the benefits and harms of that treatment, and the functioning of the healthcare system, as described in an article by Adrian Levy.  Levy argues that each of these outcomes should be assessed and should include both the successes and the limitations of each aspect.  The idea is that there should be operational measurements of patients’ interactions with the healthcare system that would include patients’ experiences in hospitals, using measurements of their functional abilities and their qualities of life following discharge.  The results of patients’ interactions with the healthcare system should be utilized to develop and improve the delivery of healthcare treatment, as well as to develop policy changes that would affect the entire field of healthcare in the United States.

One view of the state of American healthcare is that the system is fragmented; there have been many failed attempts by several presidents to introduce the idea of universal healthcare.  Instead, American citizens are saddled with a system in which government pays either directly or indirectly for over 50% of the healthcare in our country, but the actual delivery of insurance and of care is undertaken by an assortment of private insurers, for-profit hospitals, and other parties who raise costs without increasing quality of service (Wells, Krugman, 2006.) If the United States were to switch to a single-payer system such as that provided in Canada, the government would directly provide insurance which would most likely be less expensive and provide better results than our current system.

It is clear that throwing money at a problem does not necessarily resolve it; the fact that the United States spends more than twice as much on healthcare provision as any other country in the world only makes it more ironic that when it comes to evaluating the service, Americans fall appallingly flat.  In my opinion, if the new healthcare reform bill had included a public option which would have taken the profit margin out of the equation, the nation and its citizens would have been in a much better position to receive quality healthcare.  The fact that people die every day from preventable illnesses and conditions simply because they do not have affordable insurance is a national disgrace.  In addition, many of the people who have been the most adamantly against government “intrusion” into their healthcare are actually on Medicaid or Medicare, federally-funded programs.  Their lack of understanding of what the debate actually involves is striking, and they are rallying against what is in their own best interests.  These are people that equate Federal involvement in healthcare as socialism.  Unless and until our healthcare system is able to provide what is needed to all of its citizens, all claims that we have the best healthcare system in the world are, sadly, utterly hollow.

Adrian R Levy (2005, December). Categorizing outcomes of Health Care delivery. Clinical and investigative medicine, pp. 347-351.

Arthur Garson (2000). The U.S. Healthcare System 2010: Problems Principles and Potential Solutions. Retrieved July 3, 2010, from Circulation: The Journal of the American Heart Association: http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/101/16/2015

The Free Dictionary. (n.d.). Farlex. Retrieved July 3, 2010. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/system

World Health Organization. (2003, July). WHO World Health Report 2000. Retrieved July 3, 2010, from State of World Health: http://faculty.washington.edu/ely/Report2000.htm

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Secret Soviet city once home to Russian cosmonauts and space training facilities. 

A Whirlwind Tour of Space Race Relics

100 Wonders: The Secret City of the Cosmonauts

Russia’s Star City is so named not because it is home to movie stars or pop stars, but to cosmonauts, the heroes of the Soviet and Russian space programs.

Today Star City is a sort of space explorer’s utopia, where cosmonauts of the past and present have lived with their families since Yuri Gagarin became the first human to visit space in 1961.

Formerly a secret Air Force facility, Star City was highly guarded even by Soviet standards. Not listed on any Soviet-era maps, the closed urban-type settlement is hidden in the woods some twenty miles northeast of Moscow.

As the Soviet space program developed, the need for a cosmonaut training center became evident and so Star City was born. And with the arrival of prospective cosmonauts and their families, the military facility became a legitimate city, at least by rural standards.

A post office, movie theater, railway station, and a couple of schools are all within the confines of Star City. The site even captured the imagination of sophisticated city-dwellers with rumors of its impressive selection of shops.

In the 1990s, however, the curtain of secrecy over Star City was lifted and the site was opened to the public. For the first time, visitors could catch a glimpse of the tank where cosmonauts practice their space walks under water, or the gigantic centrifuge where the soon-to-be spacemen are swung around at dizzying speeds, experiencing forces eight times the force of gravity in the process.

Today, a handful of companies offer special tours of the facility and visitors can even jump into a mock-up space suit, hop in the centrifuge, or board a “zero-gravity” flight that simulates weightlessness through a parabolic trajectory. But for those who prefer to keep their feet on the ground, Star City also offers more down-to-earth activities.

In fact, the cosmonaut simulation experience does not even require you to leave your seat at the planetarium, where you can learn to navigate using thousands of stars as your reference. Meanwhile, the museum of space travel and exploration has an impressive collection of vintage spacesuits, capsules charred from reentering the atmosphere, and a replica of Gagarin’s office, which holds a book that is routinely signed by every crew before launch.

And if you’re fortunate enough to visit on the Fourth of July, you might experience Star City’s celebration at the homes built for NASA personnel in the 1990s. Just look for the American-style tract houses among the sea of Khrushchev-era concrete buildings.

Know Before You Go

Star City (Zvyozdny Gorodok) is located near Shchyolkovo, about an hour's drive northeast of Moscow. The nearest airport is Chkalovsky Airport and the nearest rail station is the Tsiolkovskaya stop off the Yaroslavl Railroad.

Community Contributors

• http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627551.900-wonder-lust-star-city.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_City,_Russia
• http://www.russianspaceweb.com/star_city.html

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