Pros and Cons of Universal Healthcare for U.s.

Article 25 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 states that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services." Article 25 is basically saying, everybody has the human right to all of these resources because these are their civil rights and they’re entitled to this.

With this being said, many people feel that healthcare is a privilege. Health care should be declared a right and everyone should be entitled to proper health care and not subject to be medically treated or not due to their financial status. For the United States to function properly and have their citizens help and contributed to social, economic, and political goals of this country.

United States citizens need to be in the proper health to ensure that these goals are met. If the American Dream is ever to be realized, Health care in the nation should be made a priority. Notwithstanding the actuality that the government over many different administrations have not been addressing the problem of healthcare for all and have been ignoring it. To surely guarantee health care for all, the whole system needs to be reformed. The government needs to make healthcare for all a priority and it needs to be the facilitator of healthcare to ensure health no matter a person’s economic standing because it is a civil right.

Although some may feel that healthcare is the responsibility of individual citizens, in actuality, the government should provide free healthcare for all Americans. The background regarding health care dates back all the way to the 19th century in Germany. In a talk given by Karen S. Palmer, she says, “As the United states continually attempted to adapt and create a working health care system, they were always on the verge but couldn’t quite perfect it. The first to begin with some sort of healthcare system was Germany in 1883, beginning with a compulsory sickness insurance. “Which was one of the first workers healthcare system. Other European nations such as Austria, Britain and Norway, following all the way through 1912. Sweden joined in 1891, Denmark in 1892, France in 1910, and Switzerland in 1912. Nonetheless, many European nations had adopted a form of healthcare for a while. The main reason as to why all of these health care programs in different European countries erupted was because of the need for income stabilization, as well as the protection of loss of wages regarding sickness rather than paying for medical expenses. During this time, the federal government left anything regarding health care up to the individual states. In which the states left them to private or voluntary programs. The United States did, however, utilize some voluntary funds which provided for their members in the case of sickness or death. Though there were not any legislative or public programs during the late 19th or early 20th century in the United States (Palmer).

Palmer also says, “During this time the progressive era was upon the United States. Reformers were working more towards improving social conditions for the working class than any other reform movements such as healthcare.” However, there was not much working class support for broad social insurance in the nation. The labor and socialist parties’ support for health insurance or sickness funds and benefits programs were much more fragmented than in Europe. Moreover, the first proposals for health insurance in the nation did not come into political debates under anti socialist sponsorship as they had in Europe. Although the United States was emerging as a global power, most pushes and legislation for health reform happened outside of the federal government (Palmer). Efforts to provide healthcare reform were always discussed in previous presendencies but not actually put into play until 1945 when President Truman proposed to congress in November of 1945 that, the United States needed a new healthcare program. In this proposal he said, the Federal government should play a role in universal healthcare.

Trump and was unable to establish a helpful healthcare during his presidency. But, the next president Lyndon B Johnson was able to established healthcare for the elderly and the needy. Although this seemed to be a push for universal healthcare, it wasnt quite enough. Middle class families in the United States still werent provided healthcare and the life expectancy was still low. This made sure that healthcare reform can only go up from then on. Now, in the 21st century, After the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, or ObamaCare, came into effect, it reformed healthcare insurance with its goal of near-universal coverage. Since ObamaCare provided subsidies, health insurance was able to be made affordable. ObamaCare emphasized preventive care.

This resulted in more individuals receiving treatment before more expensive emergency room care had to become an option. But now, the Trump administration has made several attempts to pass legislation that would overturn the Affordable Care Act. The current administration undercut the law when it said it would no longer continue funding a class of widely used subsidies without congressional appropriations. The ObamaCare was intended to ease payments and deductible costs for many low income Americans who have purchased health care insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The estimated cost of the payments was 9 billion in the next year and reaching nearly 100 billion over the next decade. Many Americans don’t agree with the repeal of this act because, it brought many Americans the insurance to pay for things they wouldn’t be able to pay for on their own. “Such as, insulin, cancer treatments, or medical surgeries.”(Amadeo) October 12th 2017, Right now, states have their own specific regulations on Healthcare, making it expensive for the national insurance companies to do business in different states. Consequently, five companies service half the insured population in the United States. The President implied that increased competition would diminish monopoly power, while at the same time lowering costs. Bigger companies though, would be the only ones with the ability to operate across state lines under current policy. “Therefore if it becomes easier for them to do so, they will raise prices. With the raise of prices not every American would be able to afford healthcare with this new revised approach”(Amadeo).

Understanding the background of Universal healthcare helps to notice how as the United States develpoped through the years to become a major world power, they werent as focused on becoming a major world power socially and for its people. Whilst other countries ensured social reform whilst also employing economic reform.

There are many reasons as to why Universal Health Care should be a right. Universal health care ensures that Americans are receiving the top care they need. Without universal healthcare, not everybody is getting the best care they need for themselves. The government should care for the individual and once they do that by ensuring universal health care, American will be in better shape because Americans don’t have to worry about healthcare nor insurance. Americans often work jobs they don’t really enjoy because, they are more concerned about the health benefits the job provides than the. They’ll be more focused on worrying about achieving the many goals America has set forth. Without humans nothing would be possible and America as a nation will be going backwards instead of forward.

Another reason as to why Universal Healthcare is right is because, the human body is the most important. With ensuring Universal healthcare, many lives can be saved. Many people depend on health care to stay alive. “Whether it be for insulin or a life changing surgery” (Avik). Some families may not be able to afford healthcare causing deaths in their family.

Even those with medicaid, often don’t get service because some Hospitals don’t accept Medicaid. For example, Roy Avik explains that, “Demonte alerted his mother of a headache he had.. The hospital diagnosed him with severe dental abscess. He was given medication, but his ailment only got worse: the infection had spread to his brain.After a second surgery, he recovered for a little bit before starting to suffer from seizures. Weeks later, he died. Demonte died because he was insured, but by the government”(Avik). Deamonte was on medicaid, and although he was insured, he never received routine dental care. As it turns out, only 16 percent of Maryland dentists actually accept individuals with Medicare. Many doctors don’t accept medicated because, “in many states it pays doctors far less than it costs those doctors to care for Medicaid patients” (Avik).

Another reason as to why Universal Healthcare should be a right is, the United States is far behind other developed countries. Even back when Universal Healthcare and workers care was prevalent on the global sphere, the United States was still behind. The United States claims to be one of the most technologically advanced and civilized yet they don’t ensure healthcare for all of its citizens. Countries in Europe and Canada ensure healthcare for all yet the United States is on the same field as them or even higher as they are yet, the United States government doesn’t ensure healthcare for all.