Introduction
Data from the US Census Bureau shows that in 2014, some 33 million people (10% of the population) in the United States did not have health insurance (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development -OECD, 2015). While all governments should offer universal healthcare to their people, some poor countries have plenty of socio-economic complexities to handle it, and for now developed countries like the United States are the ones highly capable of offering free healthcare to all their citizenry. The United States has one of the most unstable healthcare systems in terms of its affordability and access to all citizens among the 34 countries forming the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The only other countries lacking universal healthcare for their people are Poland and Greece. This comes in spite of the US being a super rich country that is hailed as a superpower in various socio-economic issues. The United States government and other developed countries should offer healthcare to all the people by making it accessible, indiscriminative and affordable through issues such as financial protection to all the citizens.
The developed countries such as the United States have established firm economies where millions of people and many businesses pay tax and part of these taxes should be used to cater for free healthcare to all the people. As such, and bearing in mind the need for healthy individuals to support themselves and the economy, it is in order that the government should offer free healthcare to its citizenry. The taxpayers- all people pay taxes directly or indirectly- should have some direct benefits for paying taxes and the area in which they would benefit most would be to have the state take charge of their health. Many people who have acquired health insurance at times struggle to pay the premiums but they still have to pay their taxes to the government. The United States and other developed countries tend to have fewer or very demanding infrastructural developments to address compared to the developing countries. As such they can afford to allocate larger chunks of budget to address the pressing concerns of their people of which healthcare tops that list in many cases.
The fact that the United States is a highly developed and rich country that supports many other countries means that it can afford to offer free or extremely subsidized healthcare to its people. While speaking as a senator on October 7, 2008, President Obama noted that “healthcare should be a right for every American”. He added that there was something fundamentally wrong with a country as wealthy as the US to have people going bankrupt because they cannot afford to settle their medical bills. The then senator and Democratic presidential candidate lamented that his mother died aged 53 years of cancer and that she spent the last months of her life arguing with her insurance companies who claimed that they could not pay for her treatment claiming that hers were preexisting conditions. President Obama captured the true position of the country and later went on to institute the Affordable care Act which has had great successes in showing that universal healthcare is possible in the United States and other developed countries.
The government should offer free healthcare to all because it is a constitutional right and many people support the issue. In 2004, a survey was conducted in which 77% of Americans stated that healthcare should be a right with 47% strongly in support of the issue and a further 28% agreeing somewhat. The people who believed that healthcare is a right fronted the following reasons; the Declaration of independence guarantees people of the right to healthcare by stating that all men have an alienable right to life of which healthcare and the preservation of life are part. They also quoted the preamble of the US constitution which states that the purpose of the constitution is to “promote the general welfare” of its people. In this case, the proponents of free healthcare for all stated that just like Americans have the right to education so should they have the right to healthcare since education and healthcare play complementary roles in “promoting the general welfare of the people”.
The moral issues surrounding healthcare and the associated costs, accessibility and equity point to the fact that healthcare should be free and accessible for all. We live in a society where when one is diagnosed with cancer the next though they get concerns the costs to be incurred. Medical issues that affect someone’s life in the long term such as cancers and other terminal diseases are a great worry to many and it is sad that the difference between a happy productive life and death is in many cases money. The government should take up the burden of healthcare so that people can live productive and hopeful lives where they can access medical services at will and with ease. Sheerow (2009) notes that where there is free healthcare works well for both the government and the citizens because the healthier people are more productive, remit more taxes, develop themselves, create employment for other people and generally develop their country. The government, also benefits because its expenditures in training and sustaining medical staff, equipping hospitals and other healthcare expenditures goes down when the nation is healthier under programs to offer free healthcare to all.
The opponents to the government offering free healthcare to all claim that it amounts to socialism and that that just like food and water which we all need, healthcare is best provided through voluntary market exchanges that are mutually beneficial. They opponents state that it is the responsibility of the individual to seek healthcare just like they do seek for food, water and other essentials. If the government was to offer healthcare to all people it would only manage to offer care that is decreased in availability and quality which would lead to compromised care, and a larger disease burden for the individuals and the state. In this case, the government would have to shoulder a larger expenditure leading it to debts and deficits which would collapse many other sectors of the economy such as education, and many social services. In order to further exonerate the government from funding healthcare for all the citizens, opponents to the move state that a careful reading of the constitution does not reveal any intrinsic rights to healthcare shelter of even food. Countries like UK and Canada which are said to offer free healthcare do so on rationing and they compromise healthcare which is also heavily paid for by the same taxpayers.
Although the above objection to the government responsibility to offer free healthcare to its people seems plausible, it is far from the truth. First of all, the Declaration of Independence just like the constitution did not have to be explicit on the many issues that comprise the promotion of welfare and therefore healthcare can rightly be factored into the issues that that provision anticipated. It is also misleading for the opponents to claim socialism when healthcare is offered free to the people. This is so because the country’s economic systems are highly capitalistic and the people to benefit from free healthcare would do so through their taxes, subsidies and other capitalistic moves since the majority of care would be offered by private entities care providers operating normal capitalistic business models. As for the US government spending highly on free healthcare it is farfetched because the government spends more now when it has failed to offer free healthcare to all. For instance, in 2012, the government spent $2.8 trillion or 17.2% of the US GDP and the figure had risen from that in previous years. Economists state that when the government offer universal healthcare it would be prudent government policy and that a healthier nation would be cost effective in the long run.
In all, the government should offer free healthcare to all people because there are numerous socio-economic issues that cause many people to suffer and die unnecessarily. The issues of equity as affected by race, ethnicity, gender, age and class stretching back through history over hundreds of years means that unless the government agreed to offer free healthcare to all the people, millions of people will suffer poor quality healthcare throughout generations. The passage of some laws such as the Affordable Care Act has shed some light into what the government and states can achieve when they offer free or highly subsidized healthcare to the people.
References
Altman, S. H., & Shactman, D. (2011). Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-long Battle. Prometheus Books.
McClanahan, C. (2012, August 22). A Great Example Of Why Everyone Should Have Health Coverage. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynmcclanahan/2012/08/22/great-story-on-why-everyone-should-have-health-coverage/#b32df1032fde
OECD. (2015). Health at a Glance 2015: OECD Indicators. oecd.org, 2015. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/s22177en/s22177en.pdf
ProCon.org. (2016). Should All Americans Have the Right (Be Entitled) to Health Care?: Background of the Issue. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://healthcare.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=006590
Sheerow, V. (2009). Universal Healthcare. Infobase Publishing.
