The Socialization of Medicine
The socialization of medicine is something which must be implemented as a matter of course within the United States of America. This is massively important in order to procure the best health for the nation, as a whole. There are, of course, pros and cons to the implementation of such a healthcare system but it is clear that one pro greatly outweighs all of the cons: the reliable and consistent medical care for everyone and anyone, regardless of class or wealth. The current system in America sees many people go without healthcare; CNN Money reported in September 2011 that 49.9 million Americans lacked healthcare insurance which was a 0.9 increase from 2009 (Christie, 2011). In short, this means that 49.9 million Americans cannot afford healthcare insurance which, by default, means that they cannot afford to pay for their healthcare on a pay-as-you-go basis either. The implication of this is that there is a significant proportion of the American population who cannot receive medical care if and when they become ill. If medicine were to be socialized, this issue would be removed and would enable everyone to receive due care when it is needed.
The points for the socialization of healthcare are clear: if adopted, the new system would allow everyone to receive the healthcare they require. It is an obvious point that absolutely everyone becomes ill and needs medication or surgery, at some point in their lives, and it is clear that under the current system, not everyone can receive due help. In the United Kingdom, healthcare has been socialized since the end of World War Two and is known as the National Health Service (NHS) (Skousen, 2011). It enables every member of the population to receive healthcare as and when they need it: “Under the NHS, patients do not pay directly for medical or hospital services. All costs are paid for by the British government.” (Skousen, 2011). The implication of this is that it does not matter whether you earn a lot or a little; you are able to receive the due care when it is needed. It also means that, unlike in America, there is no wasted time concerned with finding out whether the patient has the correct insurance or not and it is healthcare that exists solely for the people, rather than profit. To many, this is an idealized view of healthcare and one which does not solve all of the problems which are faced within society. However, when faced with the fact that, currently, over 16% of the American population cannot afford the cost of healthcare insurance, it is clear that a strong change needs to take place.
Obviously, socialized healthcare does present a number of problems too; perhaps most notably, the cost to the government. Evidently, there would need to be a slight rise in taxes in order to successfully create enough funds to cover this but, this extra cost would still be less than the cost of healthcare insurance. Equally, socialized healthcare may well procure a longer waiting list as well as fewer resources; however, this is a small price to pay for universal healthcare and in practice, is unlikely to have too big an impact in terms of the bigger picture. The bottom line is that under socialized healthcare, every member of society will be able to receive medical assistance. Many also complain about the initial costs of setting up such a radical new system: the costs are estimated at $600 billion for startup government bureaucrats and $1,200 billion within ten years (Burgess, 1996, p189). Understandably, this is quite a large sum of money but once it is set up, it will begin to see the biggest and brightest overhaul of the government commitment to the happiness and health of its charges.
Socialized healthcare would also help to create a lot more jobs: it is predicted that for the US to implement such a system, it would require: 100,000 new state government bureaucrats, 170,000 new city/local bureaucrats, 30,000 new federal bureaucrats, and 300,000 new nationwide government bureaucrats (Burgess, 1996, p189). It would, however, remove jobs in the insurance sector but arguably, this is a sector which holds significantly less importance than the medical sector since insurance men do not save lives, and doctors and nurses do. The increased cost to the tax payer would be one which would see more jobs, improving the current financial state of the country, as well as improving the morale of the nation through a fairer distribution of resources based upon who needs them as opposed to who can afford them.
Socialized healthcare is massively important to the welfare of the nation as a whole because without it, there is a clearly section of the population who cannot and will not receive the due care and attention they require. Healthcare must be available to everyone who needs it and not just to those who can afford it and whilst the initial startup costs may be somewhat staggering, the overall effect is well worth it: you cannot put a price on the health of the nation.
References
Burgess, M.F. (1996). Rebuilding downtrodden job market and madhouse society. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Christie, L. (2011). Number of people without health insurance climbs. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/census_bureau_health_insurance/index.htm
Skousen, M. (2011). EconoPower: how a new generation of economists is transforming the world. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
