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The Pros And Cons Of Privately Paid Healthcare

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Privately-paid healthcare’s propensity to increase the already substantiative inequality between socioeconomic groups remains one of its most prominent failures. Privately-paid healthcare systems, officially defined as “healthcare and medicine provided by entities other than the government”, provide healthcare services relative to one’s ability to pay. As a consequence of this, many disadvantaged citizens suffering under privately-paid healthcare systems find themselves ensnared in a ruthless poverty cycle. The cycle begins when a person struggling financially falls ill with a disease requiring treatment, but, due to their poor financial status, cannot afford themselves the medical attention their recovery requires. Removal from the workforce …show more content…

The second case against this intrinsically flawed and morally corrupt method of delivering medical service lies in its inadvertent, yet alarmingly prevalent, fostering of suspicion, mistrust, and latency: the high prices of healthcare induced by privately-paid healthcare systems (a trip to a US emergency room costs an individual an average of $1233 USD!) encourage those without monetary stability to put off visits to the doctor or the hospital until absolutely necessary. This greatly increases the fatality of diseases whose positive prognosis relies on early identification, such as cancer or meningitis, especially if initial symptoms of this disease are mild – “It’s just a headache”, Bethany Barclay figured when her daughter fell ill one afternoon, “so why would I waste money otherwise spent on food or essentials on a visit to the doctor that is likely to amount to nothing?” Bethany’s daughter passed away the next day, in the back of an ambulance that only arrived after the girl began to suffer from violent seizures. Bethany, like Tim Wilkins and countless others, wasn’t the only one forced to bear the brunt of the United States’ cruel private payer healthcare system. Out of the 150 people who die of Meningitis in the US each year, 80% - or 120 of them -- die as a result of grossly latent diagnosis. When compared to Scandinavia’s 30% of Meningitis deaths caused by late diagnosis, or New Zealand’s 40%, these statistics are chilling – and a foreboding testament to the dire need for universal universal

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