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Is Healthcare A Privilege Or A Right

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Healthcare, Is it a privilege or a right?
The Bill of Rights, symbolizes the freedom and culture of the United States of America. Citizens of this country have the right to exist as human beings and therefore, have the freedom to choose, for example medical treatment. Access to healthcare however, is mediated by insurance coverage, either in the form of private or employer based cover, which may be government based for public sector employees or private for private sector employees. Still, there were about 50 million people uninsured in the United States in 2010. President Barack Obama, in his quest to pass the Affordable Care Act, declared that health care “should be a right for every American” (Maruthappu, Ologunde & Gunarajasingam ,2013). …show more content…

Healthcare as a privilege or an entitlement, would mean that must it be earned as opposed to universally provided (p.1). In the United States, most of spending on healthcare comes from government expenditure on health programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). If health care is a right, then lawmakers should craft policies that ensure all citizens receive it. And if health care is a privilege, something earned, then maybe they need to repeal Medicare and Medicaid and revert to a free market system in which Americans pay when they can and depend on charity when they can't (Health, …show more content…

Although, it is wise to mention that while healthcare costs are on the rise in all industrialized countries, they are higher in the United States than any other industrialized countries. This is in spite of the fact that health outcomes are lower in the United States than many other advanced countries (Hosseini, 2015). But, Healthcare is available to the citizens of this country as a service, and the highest courts of this nation have recognized that people have the right to choose or to refuse medical treatment as their conscience and religious beliefs require. The question is, who would like this freedom taken away from them? The right to choose?

References
Hosseini, H. (2015). Aging and the Rising Costs of Healthcare in the United States: Can There be a Solution? Ageing International, 40(3), 229-247. doi:10.1007/s12126-014-9209-8
Maruthappu, M., Ologunde, R., & Gunarajasingam, A. (2013). Is Health Care a Right? Health Reforms in the USA and their Impact Upon the Concept of Care. Annals of Medicine and Surgery, 215-17. doi:10.1016/S2049-0801(13)70021-9
Health care --right or privilege? (2017). Arkansas Business, (13).

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