Study Document
Pages:4 (1129 words)
Sources:3
Subject:Health
Topic:Health Care System
Document Type:Essay
Document:#78799457
In Favor of Single Payer Health Care
The American health care system is broken. On this much, almost everybody can agree. Costs are spiralling out of control, health outcomes are among the worst of all developed countries, and nobody can agree on what will make it better. One of the reasons for this disagreement is that different stakeholders fail to agree on what the purpose of the health care system should be. If the purpose is to be a for-profit industry, well, then the industry needs to be set up to earn profits. But the view taken in most parts of the world is that health care serves a greater purpose. Whether this is to provide a high standard of living for people in a country for its own sake, or because healthy populace is better for the economy, such finer points can be debated. But what cannot be debated is that each and every one of us wants to live longer, healthier lives, we want our friends and families to live longer and healthier lives, and the economy benefits from healthier workers. If we can all agree on those three things, then maybe we can start to think of how to design a health care system that will deliver them. That’s what single payer does.
The Physicians for a National Health Program (2019) describes single payer as a “Medicare for all” type of system in which a public agency organizes health care financing but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands, as opposed to a universal health care model like exists in Canada or the UK. The reason single payer makes more sense in America is because the delivery of health care is largely set up for private enterprise, and a shift towards nationalizing care would be jarring; a shift towards single payer simply replaces private insurance with public insurance.
Most single payer systems deliver health care at a lower cost, and higher effectiveness, than the current system in the United States. They do so by eliminating profits from the system, reducing administrative costs, and imposing cost controls, such…
…with making the shift to single payer. There are challenges that must be overcome. But since when did we become a nation of cowards, afraid to embrace change, and shying away from challenges because doing the right thing is too hard? That is not who we are as a nation.
The political winds are shifting. We now see multiple high-profile politicians discussing single payer health care. Their views are painted as radical. But those views are not considered radical anywhere else in the world. If conservatives in Canada, the UK and other countries with similar lifestyles to our own accept and embrace single payer, what’s to stop us from doing so here at home? What do we have to fear? Better care? Lower costs? Seems to me that we are afraid of nothing more than our own shadows. We can be better, America. We can embrace a model of single payer that works better than any other country in the world, combining the best in care delivery that we have to offer, with a system that ensures all…
References
Christopher, A. (2016) Single payer healthcare: Pluses, minuses, and what it means for you. Harvard Health Publishing. Retrieved April 7, 2019 from https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/single-payer-healthcare-pluses-minuses-means-201606279835
Ivers, N., Brown, A., Detsky, A. (2018) Lessons from the Canadian experience with single-payer health insurance. JAMA Internal Medicine Vol. 178 (9) 1250-1255.
PNHP (2019) About single payer. Physicians for a National Health Program. Retrieved April 7, 2019 from https://pnhp.org/what-is-single-payer/
Study Document
Universal health care system also termed as single-payer system in intended for all individuals irrespective of their financial standing. No procedure is considered perfect for the universal or single healthcare system. Several nations are adopting various procedures for attaining the objective of providing insurance facilities to its individuals. Soviet Union is considered as the premier nation engaged in guaranteeing the system of universal health care to its citizens. After prolonged
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In addition, those with preexisting conditions could also not be denied coverage. Voucher reimbursement would be based on age and health of the patient, so younger, healthier individuals would be reimbursed at a lesser amount while older, less healthy individuals would be reimbursed at a higher amount, ensuring that insurance companies were fairly reimbursed for their costs. Writers Emanuel and Fuchs continue, "So, the payment to insurers for covering
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Overview
The notion of universal health care in the United States is a decidedly polarizing one, which is why this author chose it. Universal health care is a single payer system in which healthcare is subsidized by the government with equal, free access to all. The audience for this document is the array of health care insurance companies. Many people deride such a notion as a harbinger of socialism, which
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Healthcare Legislative Bill The expanded and improved Medicare for all Acts The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act was introduced to the House of Representatives in 2009 and seeks to lobby for the implementation of a common single-payer health care system throughout the United States o0f America. The bill if enacted would require that all medical care costs be paid for automatically by the government instead of private insurances for the
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This drug is far more available in the U.S. Others complain about waiting lists for specialists or refusals by their GPs to see much-needed specialists. Specialists in fields of practice such as mental health and dentistry are often scarce, in certain areas of the country. And because of lower tax revenues due to the recession and rising costs due to the aging of the population, the NHS has placed
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3). In the same Hastings Center Report as the above quoted article, another article reiterates, "One widely accepted way of justifying universal access to health care is to argue that access to health care is necessary to ensure health, which is necessary to provide equality of opportunity, but the evidence on the social determinants of hearth undermines this argument" (Sreenivasan, 2007, pg. 21). Though the literature offers sound reasons why a