Health Care Hypothesis

Although America is one of the most successful nations in the world, our reputation is deteriorating as health inequality continues to expand. Health inequality results from multiple factors including wealth/income inequality. Those who didn't have enough money for insurance didn't acquire any. The Affordable Care Act, known as ‘Obamacare’, designed to provide low-income Americans effective insurance, is accompanied by numerous complications.

What would you say when I told you that if you look at a list of the worlds developed industrialized nations that there is only one developed country in the world that doesn’t have a universal healthcare system. Some of the countries on this list include Japan, Germany, and even Canada. The United States, a global power, our home and the world’s largest economy is the only westernized industrial country without universal healthcare. The amount of people dying due to a lack of medical coverage is at an all-time high, while the U.S also has the most expensive healthcare system in the world for its citizens. According to Toni Johnson, author of the article “Healthcare Costs and U.S Competiveness” “The United States spends an estimated $2 trillion annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other industrialized country. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States spends two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average, and yet ranks with Turkey and Mexico as the only OECD countries without universal health coverage.” (Johnson) For a country that spends so much it seems strange we do not even offer the best health care in the world. It also seems even stranger that there are over 45 million Americans who are going without health insurance. (Johnson) Universal health care is defined as a basic guarantee of health care to all its

Contrary to what many people believe, America’s health status is not quite “up-to-par,” to say the least. Over forty-seven million people in the United States lack health insurance; that is more than 15% of our nation’s population! At first this disturbing truth seems impossible to believe, being as America is one of the most technologically advanced and economically developed countries in the world. “We spend trillions of dollars per year on medical care. That’s nearly half of all the health dollars spent in the world. But we’ve seen our statistics. We live shorter, often sicker lives than almost every other industrialized nation. “We rank 30th in [global] life expectancy” (Adelman 2008). Knowing this brings rise to the question: why are

The single most important impetus for healthcare reform throughout recent history has been rising costs (Sultz, 2006). In the book called The healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care, Reid wrote that the nation’s health care system has become excessively expensive, ineffective, and unjust. Among the world’s developed nations, the US ranks near the bottom for healthcare access and quality. However, the US ranks at the top for health expenditure as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and average of $7,400 per person (Reid, 2010). Therefore, Americans are spending

Health care reform and access to insurance have been staples of the American political agenda ever since the end of World War II. From President Truman’s call for universal coverage in the late 1940’s to the creation of Medicaid and Medicare to the Affordable Care Act, both parties have debated how to lower the rate of uninsured Americans. After nearly 70 years of debate in Washington and beyond, the number of Americans with health insurance has certainly grown (Miller, 2014). However, the number of people in the United States without coverage is still unacceptably high and a problem that should be addressed with a great deal of urgency and care.

As the world’s richest and most powerful nation, the United States sets itself apart from other countries on a range of issues. Some of these issues are worth celebrating, while others highlight how this country continues to lag other developed countries. No issue demonstrates this divide more clearly than our lack of universal healthcare. Touted as the best system in the world by supporters, when compared with other rich nations, we continue to spend more but have lower outcomes. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, attempted to address many of the problems with the current system; however it does not go far enough. To further improve outcomes and lower costs we must establish a universal single-payer system.

Uncontrollable skyrocketing health care costs not only effect our economy but every American pocket book. The Obamacare Act was the most important healthcare reform enacted since Medicare/Medicaid was created in 1965 (Jama, 2016). The Affordable Care Act has made a substantial progress in solving the challenges U.S healthcare faced for decades. The uninsured rate was dropped from 16.0% in 2010 to 9.0% in 2015 (Jama, 2016). Not only has the ACA delivered an access to quality

Many people in the United States at some point in their life pay for health insurance or health care. Usually the people who pay for health insurance is either retired from work or are in their primes with children to care for. There are many other kinds of health care associations in the U.S., but there’s a major health insurance cooperation in today’s society that is causing problems in America’s economy and causing major drops in unemployment rates everywhere in the U.S., named after the 44th president of the United States of America, President Barack Obama, Obamacare is a type of health care system that is outrageously expensive and money consuming, putting Americans into serious debt. It had once been seen as a plan to help Americans

When attempting to determine the benefits and the negatives associated with national health care in the United States, one inevitably must discern the projected impact of the Affordable Care Act. This act was signed into being by the current president in 2010, and triumphed in a Supreme Court Decision in 2012 in which its legality was upheld as constitutional (No author). The chief aims of this particular piece of legislation are to increase accessibility to health care for Americans, primarily by lowering costs associated with it. It will fully take effect in 2014, by which time citizens will have a variety of options of obtaining health care either through a state subsidy, through Medicaid, or through one's employer or a private plan. Those who do not have health care by this point will be assessed a fine; certain employers who do not offer health care may also be assessed a fine. A thorough analysis of the boons and the detriments of this form of national health care reveals that it is beneficial to the country as a whole.

Consequently the U.S. spends more money than any other country on health care, and the medical care that is being provided may be compromised. Research has shown that the lack of health care insurance compromises a person’s health. However, there continues to be unnecessary death every year in the U.S. due to lack of health care

According to Squires and Chloe, the United States of America is considered as the greatest country in the world, with the largest economy, military powers, freedom of religion and speech, and one of the most successful democrats (2). However, the United States in the only western modernized nation that does not offer free healthcare services to all its citizens. Apparently, the costs of the healthcare services to the uninsured individuals in the US are prohibitive, where the insurance companies are interested in making higher profit margins than providing adequate health care to the insured (Squires and Chloe 4). These conditions are unexpectable and incompatible with the United States

U.S. health care reform is currently one of the most heavily discussed topics in health discourse and politics. After former President Clinton’s failed attempt at health care reform in the mid-1990s, the Bush administration showed no serious efforts at achieving universal health coverage for the millions of uninsured Americans. With Barack Obama as the current U.S. President, health care reform is once again a top priority. President Obama has made a promise to “provide affordable, comprehensive, and portable health coverage for all Americans…” by the end of his first term (Barackobama.com). The heated debate between the two major political parties over health care reform revolves around how to pay for it and more importantly, whether it

The United States does not provide healthcare to its citizens the way rest of the countries do. Instead of guaranteeing that all are covered, it works on a market-based system where those who are insured, receive their coverage as a condition of employment, whereas others must purchase individual policies or obtain coverage through Medicaid or private insurance companies, and not everyone would qualify to receive health care benefits. For decades, health care has been an issue for the country, especially for the people who are ill and cannot afford coverage. However, when Obama became president, he created a law that allows more opportunities for the population to receive health insurance without further complications or strict requirements that many private companies have. The law has remained a focus of heated political debate from the day it was suggested. The dispute surrounding the law creates pressure regarding whether the reform has been beneficial or a complete failure. Indeed, the one unifying aspect of all of the debate over the reform was the fact that everyone acknowledged that reform was needed, but as to what that alteration should be was the contentious part of the debate. Through extensive research, and despite common objections, it is clear that health care reform shows positive impacts based on the effects in certain states, the expansion of Medicaid, and its effectiveness today.

Health care reform has been a big topic since the Clinton administration when First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, took it under her belt to devise a new system. Health care is the provision taken to preserve mental and physical health using prevention and treatment. Compared to other health care systems in the world, the United States is ranked 37th in terms of care, claims Michael Moore (2007). Ironically, our health care system spends more than any other nation on its patients, averaging nearly $8,000 per person (DiNitto, 2012). With soaring costs, it is no surprise that one in every seven Americans are uninsured (Kaiser, 2011). Even with these sorry figures, statistics show that 85% of Americans are satisfied with their health care

In President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union address, a list of proposed economic rights to which the president believed all Americans were entitled was enumerated in what is now popularly referred to as the “Economic Bill of Rights” (Roosevelt). Among the rights listed was “The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health,” (Ibid). Seventy-one years on, this proposed right is rather poorly guaranteed, if at all. Even after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the Census Bureau reported that 10.4% of the US population, approximately 33 million people, was uninsured throughout 2014, severely limiting their access to healthcare (Radnofsky). The United States ought to guarantee universal access to healthcare through a single-payer system because it is ethical and practical while alternative plans fail to provide sufficient benefit.