Single Payer Healthcare : Is It Best For America?

In the article, it says that more than thirty percent of Americans support this push to have a personalized plan. The Pew Research Center reported that 60% of the population said that the government should ensure health care coverage but 39% said that the government should not which brings up a question, where is the other 1% leaning. The influence of private investors, companies and government programs have completely taken over the health care system so the core roots of what was originally established have been somewhat lost. Pharmaceutical companies are very against the push to single-payer health care because it jeopardizes their profit off their patients. Looking at how the investors see Obamacare is that they get to control the prices of medications, they mandate how much a procedure may cost and it can fluctuate depending on where you want to seek care. The single-payer option completely discards the monopolies out of health care and also underpays physicians. "In a single-payer system," Dr. Michael Accad from San Francisco says, "planners decide arbitrarily what the payments should be, and payments fall because there are no competitors and no choice for providers to bid up payments." A study did show that primary care physicians received higher pay with Medicare rather than a centralized system such as Canada. Dr. Accad says that single-payer systems in Canada, the United Kingdom, and other developed

The question of Universal Healthcare in the United States has valid and non valid arguments with supporters on both sides of the issue. Millions of Americans do not have affordable health care insurance. The main question is who is responsible to provide this? Is it feasible for government to pay for the lack of health care by taxpayer’s dollars? Should you be responsible for yourselves or should you be compensated by the government?       Unemployment is at record high making health insurance less attainable or affordable than ever. In most cases, additional restrictions or

For the last five years of my life I have worked in the healthcare industry. One of the biggest issues plaguing our nation today has been the ever rising cost of health care. If we don't get costs under control, we risk losing the entire system, as well as potentially crippling our economy. For the sake of our future, we must find a way to lower the cost of health care in this nation.

The availability of healthcare is an extremely important issue in the United States. There are millions of Americans that are uninsured in the U.S. A high amount of uninsured people are from minority groups such as Hispanics and African-Americans. High deductible payments, the cost of prescription drugs, and lack of health insurance coverage cause many Americans to choose to live without insurance to save money for everyday expenses beside healthcare. Without health insurance, people do not have access to quality healthcare. Most citizens are aware of the issues in the healthcare system, but the disagreement comes when discussing how the best approach on ameliorating the system. Some believe that a more public and universal healthcare system is the best approach. Others believe that America works best through free enterprise and private institutions, and believe health insurance should be more privatized. However, health care has been shown to work best and be more available through proper public government control as it will allow for all Americans to have access to equal healthcare, in which money does not dictate health.

While campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont proposed that America should adopt a single-payer health care system. In Sanders’s plan, there would have been only one insurance program that would have covered everyone in the United States; in effect, other programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and especially private insurance would be discontinued (Holahan, 2016, p. 1). If Sanders’s proposal were to be carried out, it would be a drastic change from the current system which predominately comprises of private insurance and hospitals under limited government regulations. The debate reopened on whether or not a single-payer system would be an effective system health care system or economically viable. Due to the contrasting nature of current health care system in the United States, policymakers should approach proposals of single-payer health care systems with caution and an understanding of the benefits and the drawbacks by examining the successes and failures of real-world systems.

Long before the 1990s when Ms. Clinton fought for a Universal Healthcare system in America, the issue of America’s healthcare had been a political quandary. The enactment of the Republican administration’s Health Management Organization Act of 1973 was a weapon meant to address that crisis, yet, it did little to fix the problem. While the liberal Democrats are fighting for Universal Healthcare coverage for all Americans, the conservative Republicans are fighting to maintain the current private health insurance, however, with some revamping of the system, which preserves the capitalistic element of the status quo. The reason for the two opposing views stems from their differences in political ideologies, which theoretically is like pitting socialism against capitalism. While the liberal Democrats’ endorsement of Universal Healthcare system is socialistic in practice, the conservative Republicans’ fight to retain the private or market based plan is unarguably in support of their pro-capitalism stance. The truth, however, is that, though almost every American believes in capitalism, yet, almost none would vote to disband the Medicare and the Medicaid programs, both of which are socialistic. In that light, the argument of a pro-capitalist nation is negated, as we do already have a socialized healthcare program for the seniors and the poor. Extending that concept to include

Brian became aware of his testicular cancer five years ago. Despite insurance, Brian still owed thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. Over the course of three years, he built relationships with nurses, doctors, and the hospital staff during treatments and follow up appointments. Without warning or explanation, the insurance company no longer accepted his hospital as a provider under their plans. He doubted any other hospital staff could provide the physical and emotional support his previous providers gave and wondered how to replace the people who had been there during the toughest times of his life (Salmon). The current health care system in America affects people physically, emotionally, and financially. “Costs are enormous, yet Americans do not fare better, and often fare worse, than citizens in countries which spend substantially less on health care” (Cicconi).

A single payer health care system causes an increase in taxes as the system needs to be paid for. The overall costs if the system can be draining on a country and causes large debts. The existing U.S government healthcare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program are already putting a huge strain on public budget. Adding a universal healthcare program to these would amount to enormous growth in government spending and debt. Governments aren’t that great at running large systems and the fact that the government runs health care can lead to a lot of problems. To run the health care system there may need to be cuts made in other areas of the government which weaken those areas to compensate for the need of the health care system. However, this doesn’t mean that government can’t adjust. Throughout the last 3 centuries our government has been molded and crafted to be better. There is nothing standing in the way of further positive

The future of healthcare resides in a single-payer system. Our country already has roughly fifty years of experience in this area under the Medicare program. By extending Medicare to all citizens we could ensure that all have the health coverage they need and that “everyone would make a financial contribution to Medicare for All” (Seidman, 2015). A single-payer system would also give the government the necessary leverage to negotiate better prices for care and prescription

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare is a healthcare reform law that is intended to reform the health care system by providing Americans with affordable quality health insurance by controlling the growth in healthcare spending. Some critics of the Affordable Care Act say the ACA has not provided universal coverage, and one way to fix this is to adopt a “single-payer system.” I agree with these critics on the counts of the Single Payer System being a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands. Doctors and patients regaining healthcare freedom, the accessibility of full coverage, and with financial benefits, the Single Payer System should be adopted by America today.

An alternative to the Affordable Care Act is the Single Payer healthcare. The single payer healthcare is healthcare that is financed by taxes that cover the cost of healthcare for all residents. Many counties that consider healthcare as a humane right actually use this system like Denmark and Norway. A single payer system would replace thousandths of for profit insurance company with a public universal plan. It would essentially resemble Medicare except available for everyone not just seniors. There are many good qualities of this system, care would be based on need not ability to pay and employers wont be held responsible for health care anymore.

While some argue that a switch to universal healthcare will cost up to $1.5trillion,4 there are other factors at play that influence the economy. Most Americans have health insurance through their employer which causes a huge financial strain on that employer, which is in turn reflected in product and service prices. If the price of goods and services goes up, that could end up hurting the United States’ global competitiveness. Citizens are unwilling to leave their current employer and possibly start their own business for fear of not being able to afford health insurance on their own.5 Some of those would-be entrepreneurs could create the next big product that becomes a critical part of the national economy. On average, the typical family of four in America pays over $20,000 annually on health insurance,7 money that could be pushed back into the economy. This is all in addition to the societal costs caused by the lack of universal health care such as fewer years in the workforce, caused by poor health, and higher cost to public programs like Medicare and the criminal justice system.5 If someone is uninsured until they reach the appropriate age to enroll in Medicare, they could have pre-existing, otherwise preventable conditions that will end up costing more money than it would have to treat them in the first place. In 2005, economist Dr. Kenneth Thorpe published a report in which he calculated the overall

A single payer national health care program could save American?s billions of dollars currently being spent on health care and insurance. A 2000 report by John Sheils and Randall Haught of the Lewin group on the costs and impact of a health care system in the state of Maryland showed that a single payer system implemented in that state would save its citizens 346.8 million dollars a year.(3) The majority of savings from this would come from vast reductions in administrative costs associated with insurance companies and the filing of claims. Sheils also reports that the average family would spend 261 dollars less each year on health costs (7). John Canham-Clyne notes in his book The Rational Option that a single payer bill proposed in the Senate was estimated to save the American public $110 billion a year by the Congressional Budget Office(24). The savings

Currently, the issue of health insurance has been a bone of contention for the public regarding whether the United States government should provide this health plan or not. People often possess different perspectives and refer to pros and cons on both sides of the spectrum. While some believes a universal healthcare system will set a foundation for a lower quality of service, increasing governmental finance deficit, and higher taxes, others do not hold the same thought. A universal healthcare system brings enormous advantages rather than disadvantages, such as all-inclusive population coverage, convenient accessibility, low time cost, and affordable medical cost, all of which not only provide minimum insurance to the disadvantaged but also improve the efficiency of medical resources distribution.

It's since the whole notion of well being insurance relies on govt intervention, not a free market. In a free market, coverage companies would be capable to freely accumulate premiums even as finding excuses not to pay clinical fees. It could be within the best print, that they would not have got to pay besides small quantities in wonderful occasions. But the kind of government intervention now we have now's highly inefficient and wasteful. We ought to repair that. A single payer method appears to be the one way feasible to make it effective. But even that is going to be particularly wasteful unless we will someway do it