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Health Insurance In The United States

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Health Care
Compared to other Western countries, the United States spends more per capita on health care than any other nation. In 1990; for example, national expenditures for health care were more than 40% comparing to Canada during the same period, whose spending was the second highest. Despite the enormous expense of health care in the United States, the general standards of health, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, are not as high as those in countries which spend less. Currently, the U.S. has a health care system based on insurance coverage; hence, the majority of the population is covered by private/employer-based insurance. Generally the employer pays a major part of the insurance premium and the individual pays a deductible …show more content…

Therefore; it is my opinion that the government should institute a form of national health insurance for every American. This will defiantly cover the unemployed, disable and the elderly. In some ways however; the government deals with this insufficient coverage through public insurance programs developed under the Social Security Amendments of 1965. This amendment created both Medicare, which provides voluntary supplementary medical insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which gives grants to states to provide insurance for those below a certain income level. Despite these programs that have designed to aid those who do not have group enrollment through employment, there are still millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. These are Americans who do not fall below the income level which would give them access to Medicaid, yet whose employers do not offer them insurance. Given these information I think it would be in the best interest of politicians and private investors to have a national insurance scheme. Moreover; it will make a great difference for U.S. companies, such as automobile manufacturers, to compete internationally when most developed countries provide national health insurance (Legerski, …show more content…

Moreover; it is no secret that many Americans are opposed to a universal entitlement program because they believe it will lead to runaway costs. However, nations that entitle all residents to health care spend less money than the U.S. because they save on the administrative costs, which is a huge thing for Americans. Hence; politicians and business should do a comparative analysis another country's system as a starting point, in order to learn how to create a national health program that does not lead to increased costs for every American (Monahan, & Schwarcz, 2013). With this much room for possible improvement, the incentives should be sufficient to foster changes in behavior from politicians and

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