The Pros And Cons Of Universal Healthcare

A June 2022 study determined the United States could have saved $105.6 billion in Covid-19 hospitalization costs, along with saving close to 212,000 lives. Even so the United States has a history with universal healthcare. In the late 1800s an idea of universal healthcare was developed, it was not until 1973 through the legislative reform modern universal healthcare was introduced. In 1945, President Harry Truman brought the idea of universal healthcare to Congress; Congress rejected the idea of universal healthcare. In addition, universal healthcare should be the healthcare system in the United States. Universal healthcare helps make healthcare more affordable. Accordingly, universal healthcare helps prevent medical debt. Reporters Patrick

The 50/30/20 rule is a guide line for how money should be spent. The guide line proposes 50% of annual income goes to needs, 30% should go to wants, and the last 20% should go to savings or debt. When the savings and debt exceeds 20%, people must take expenses out of the other categories, thus causing financial hardship. Along with medical debt, many people in the United States do not have health insurance. Heather Bednarek and Ellen Barnid mention 8.6% of Americans do not have health coverage as of 2020. It can be harder for people to get the healthcare they need because they do not have insurance to cover their expenses. Uninsured families that obtain medical debt take money out of their savings and sacrifice other necessary assets of living such as, food, heating, and rent in order to pay off uncovered medical debt. Laurence A. Turka and Arthur Caplin from Journal of Clinical Investigation observed nearly fifteen percent of Americans do not have health insurance; no insurance can lead to patients coming in with a preventable condition and deaths. Many people that do not have health insurance will not go into healthcare facilities to get the care they

Most importantly, it improves mortality rates amongst the overall population. Harold Pollack from The Unisured explains, “RAND study predicted that low-income patients enrolled in a high-deductible plan would experience a 38 percent higher mortality rate than … peers enrolled in a free-care plan”. Universal healthcare is a free healthcare program implemented in many countries around the world. A higher mortality rate means more deaths are occurring; this is seen in lower income households which could be related to the lack of care being provided to these households. Equality is needed amongst care provided in health care so lower income households can get the proper care they need, which will lead to fewer deaths. Furthermore, the United States healthcare system is ranked low in financial equality compared to other countries. Karen Davis, an economist and the president of the Common Wealth Funds shares, the United States is ranked low on many aspects of healthcare. One aspect is fairness of financial contribution towards healthcare, which is ranked fifty-fourth in the world. Fairness of financial contribution is when every household pays an equal share of their capacity to pay for health. Most of Europe has universal healthcare; this contributes to why European countries are ranked higher in fairness of financial contributions compared to other countries. Universal healthcare is a government program and will