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Universal Health Care Essay

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The United States and Universal Health Care: Should the U.S. Make the Switch? The United States has one of the largest, most complex health care systems in the world. Although the U.S. is among the wealthiest nations in the world, it is far from the healthiest and falls behind other developed nations in terms of healthcare. Mexico and the United States are the only members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has 34 members in total, which do not have universal health care (“Should All Americans Have the Right to Health Care?” 2015). Health coverage in the United States is provided through both private and public insurance and not automatically provided to everyone. About a fifth of America’s gross …show more content…

The United States should switch to a universal health care system to make health care more accessible to its citizens, improve health conditions, and make it so that medicine and treatment is more affordable for everyone regardless of their social status. Universal health coverage ensures that all people use the health services they need, of adequate quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the services provided are affordable (“What is Universal Coverage?” 2015). France, Germany, Italy, The United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and Russia all have universal health care. This means that the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not provide all its citizens with health care. With universal health care, countries provide their inhabitants with basic healthcare services as long as they are citizens. No one can be denied healthcare in these countries regardless of their social status (“Universal Health Care Coverage Definition | Investopedia” 2011). In the United States, the healthcare system is much different. Facilities are mainly owned and operated by the private business sector which causes the price of treatment and medical visits to be higher than those in countries who have hospitals and insurance run by the government. For example, the United Kingdom in which “Health care and health policy for England is the responsibility of the central government, whereas in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it

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