The idea I can’t stop thinking about is universal health coverage, or more realistically, a system of nationally funded public healthcare. From the time I was little, healthcare and medicine has been a part of my life. I chased my older sister around our house with bandaids, and I played school nurse with my mom in the care while we waited for my sister to finish school. Healthcare has shaped the way I think about people and the world. I have followed our system of healthcare since I was old enough to understand politics. I questioned my dad in the car endlessly, exhausting his knowledge on our health insurance and what he knew about the private healthcare sphere.
I wanted to bang my head against the wall when our legislators made what I considered to be poor decisions on health, and I rejoiced when there were strides made in gaining access to appropriate health services for those worst off in our country. Health is considered by many to be a basic human right. Article 25 in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights made in 1948
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in 1973 posed a question about the healthcare crisis at that time, questioning where we were meant to go from that point onward (Hodgson, 1973). At this time, experts from renowned medical schools such as Harvard expected that creating a system of universal and comprehensive national health insurance would take 15 years. Other industry experts predicted only a three- to five-year delay. Instead, here we are 45 years later without a comprehensive program in sight. There are many entities to blame for the clear hindrances to progress. Our political system is stringently divided, and the crisis of healthcare merely becomes more contentious every year. However, there is a human collective experience along with the value of personal health that connects the experiences of medicine, and this should go beyond political