Argumentative Essay On Social Care

1656 Words7 Pages
On Socialized Healthcare
Free healthcare for everyone! Promises like this for socialized healthcare have been made by politicians like Bernie Sanders, have sparked movements in the US, and have been implemented in many countries. Now what is “socialized healthcare”? It goes by many names: single payer healthcare, universal healthcare, and my least favorite, free healthcare. At its core socialized healthcare means that the government pays for the people’s healthcare. Countries like Canada and Denmark and the United Kingdom and Sweden guarantee healthcare as a right and have a single payer system. It is declared a human right in those countries because, as everyone would agree, healthcare is a necessity. Many also argue that the cost of health insurance is too high and people can not pay for healthcare. This is true. If your employer does not provide your insurance it can be very difficult to be covered. It can also be near impossible to get affordable coverage if you have a pre-existing condition. The opposite of socialized healthcare would be a free market, meaning the government was not involved and people could offer services and use those services however they wish. This is closer to the system we have in the United States; however, the U.S. healthcare is by no terms a free market, and I would like to preface this by saying that I in no way think the U.S. healthcare system is without flaws. There is a wealth of government regulation and government programs to provide