The year of 2020 is a year that will forever go down in history as one of the hardest and most trying of times in the history of mankind. There was so much change that everyone had experienced and no one was safe from the change, whether you were on the bottom of the social ladder or the top of the social ladder. The world experienced a world wide pandemic that lit a fire under a controversial topic in the USA. That topic is universal healthcare. This has been a large debate in US politics for decades. So large, that universal healthcare has consistently been ranked as the most important issue by voters’ election after election. So what exactly is universal healthcare? The World Health Organization, or WHO, defines universal healthcare as “ensuring …show more content…
There are many people in the US you have a chronic disease and have issues seeing a doctor due to not having enough insurance, not having the right kind of insurance or they just can’t afford the high cost associated with doctor visits or they may be able to afford to go to the doctor but can’t afford the high cost of needed medicines, such as insulin to treat diabetes. Having healthcare for all means that the US populus can get the treatment they need and deserve. This goes beyond treating current conditions. Preventative healthcare will be a staple on the road to a healthier nation. During the Obama administration, the Affordable Care Act was implemented which brought lower cost insurance to millions of Americans. The ACA helped those in need be able to afford healthcare to treat their medical needs and the needs of their families. Before the ACA the US had roughly 46 million people without insurance. After implementation that number fell to around 26 million uninsured citizens. It was a great step in the right direction towards having universal healthcare, but it still was not enough and was met with it’s own set of challenges from those who didn’t agree with …show more content…
Those who were sick could not get access to the healthcare that was needed and we lost a lot of lives that could have been saved. It is estimated that having universal healthcare could have saved the lives of around 212,000 people during the pandemic but instead the US lost the lives of 973,000 by March 2022. As the country shut down, businesses closed and millions became unemployed and lost their employer provided healthcare. Many citizens could not afford healthcare after losing their job so many went untreated resulting in a higher death toll. Along with the lives that could have been saved, there was also around $105 billion that could have been saved in medical expenses from hospitalizations dealing directly with the Covid-19 virus. In a non-pandemic instance, the savings could be anywhere around $438 billion per year by moving to a universal healthcare