Healthcare Inequality: The American Insurance Crisis

Millions of Americans are without health insurance in the United States due to many factors such as unemployment, the cost of insurance and insurance companies denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions. The United States does not provide health care to its citizens the way the rest of the industrialized world does. Instead of providing coverage for all it institutes market-based options, in which some receive coverage from their place of employment, another options are purchasing individual plans and some can obtain coverage through public programs like Medicaid. The United States is the only westernized industrial nation without a universal health care system. The United States spends more than any other country in the world on a failing

The founding documents clearly state “We are the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare…do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.” The term welfare includes “well-being, “happiness, health and prosperity” so it is not only the duty of the government to provide health care for all, but would be considered unconstitutional not to do so. With a universal health care system the improved health of the population, since all would have access to health care, a decrease in illness with the general population would diminish greatly. With all having access to health care it would promote equality and fairness to all citizens. One of the biggest key factors of a universal health care system would be the doctors and other health care professionals would be able to focus on treating the patient more instead of worrying about the business aspect of making money, who is paying for the treatment also the billing and paperwork process of diagnosing whatever illness the patient has. With all the insurance, payments and paperwork aspects of medical care taken care of by the government health care professionals would be able to do a better job in taking care of the

Many countries give coverage to all but have extremely long waits for treatments and ration coverage on certain illness and diseases (Formosa Post, 2015). Also there are very strict restrictions on the choice of the physician and often doctors are already chosen for the patient. Many Americans are also afraid of a universal health care system because they think it’s a form of socialism where the industry and resources are owned and controlled by the state. They are afraid if this type of system is put into place it would lead to overall socialism and infringe on Americans choices. The biggest concern for Americans on a universal system is everyone would be paying the same amount of taxes for health care costs and for others care essentially also. People that live unhealthy lifestyles for example, smoking or excess drinking and unhealthy eating habits would be covered if a medical condition rose from their self-induced decisions. Leaving some health conscience citizens that don’t need as much money spent on medical treatments because they stay active, healthy and make good health decisions practically paying for someone else’s medical bills. A lot of citizens find that it is unfair to be paying the same amount of taxes and don’t need the same care as someone who is unhealthy and