A lack of healthcare leads to 45,000 American's dying every year. Republican's argue that repealing Obamacare will make healthcare more accessible, and will help the poor and middle-class. Establishment Democrats on the other-hand are in favor of keeping Obamacare and otherwise changing very little about our healthcare system. However, it is my opinion that both these viewpoints are barbaric and ineffectively at addressing the root problem. In actuality we need to pursue adopting a single-payer healthcare system.
Prior to Obamacare passing most individuals would receive healthcare through their work. This inherently disincentivizes entrepreneurship by forcing middle-class would-be entrepreneurs to risk their healthcare in order to create a business. Worse yet, individuals can still be denied healthcare through copay's, deductibles, and denied coverage due to preexisting conditions. The uninsured rate was also substantially higher than it is under Obamacare. For these reasons, simply repealing Obamacare is not a viable solution.
However, even under Obamacare our healthcare system is failing the poor and middle class. While Obamacare has reduced the uninsured rate, and protected individuals with preexisting conditions, the insured may still face severe financial burdens. Medical bankruptcy is still the number one form of bankruptcy--account for nearly two thirds of personal bankruptcies in the US. The majority of these individuals who had to declare bankruptcy already had health-insurance.
Enacting single-payer healthcare will not only eliminate deductibles, co-pays, and cover the healthcare costs of every citizen, but it will also reduce the cost per capita spent on healthcare. While the profit motive can be beneficial in some industries, in the health insurance industry it only serves to price-gouge consumers. The United State's spends more per capita on healthcare than any other developed nation. Two major contributors to this are the inability to negotiate medicaid costs and the profit margins that exist from major health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Consequently, in the United State's a hip replacement costs an average of $40,000 whereas in the UK the cost averages $14400.
In addition to driving costs down, and saving tens of thousands of lives each year, a single payer healthcare system would allow for more innovation among the middle-class and provide financial easing for the impoverished and middle-class leading to economic growth. For this reason, it is vital that we apply political pressure onto our representatives to pass HR-676 the "Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act." A bill which was introduced by Representative John Conyers which would establish a single payer healthcare system.
No comments:
Post a Comment