Achieving Universal Health Care in the United States, continued
by Isabel Rodriguez
Another barrier is the failure of the U.S. government to invest in the future of millions of its citizens by implementing UHC. This is not the case in other nations. These countries give value to their citizens' rights to health care and have created cost efficient programs to cover health care for them. "Comparing the costs and benefits shows that extending insurance coverage to the uninsured would be a good social investment. For every dollar spent, the benefits would be about $1.50" (Cutler, 2004, pp. 65-6). This social investment would affect the lives of millions of uninsured individuals. It would also affect the average-income Americans who are poorly insured and are suffering financially because of this coverage (McCanne, 2004). "In addition to providing access to needed care and equal economic opportunity.health insurance also provides families with protection from financial distress" (Reinhardt, 2003). People shouldn't have to suffer financially because of health care expenses. We need to make changes because our system is unjust and undeserved. This is a serious matter putting in danger the "middle class" (LeBow, 2003). If the middle class is becoming poorer because of money spent on health coverage and health care debts then the U.S. is at risk for having a "bipolar" population, very few rich people and many very poor people. That would really be a big problem where the majority of the population is too poor to afford health care and the only care sought is emergency care. So implementing UHC is investing in the future of the middle class and the poor Americans, an investment in those people who need help. These are the same people that make up the workforce that this country relies on for its survival. The money saved through this investment can be put towards other areas that may need additional funding. Opponents of UHC say that we are not taking into consideration the differences between the nations with such programs and the U.S. (Harris, Ripperger, & Horn, 2000). "These traditional measures [that are being used to compare nation's health systems]. do not adjust for the enormous demographic, socioeconomic, and value differences between the United States and other developed countries" (Harris, et al., 2000). Are our values twisted? It is not like other countries do not have diversity and socioeconomic differences, but they have found ways to make everyone be accounted for at least regarding health care. There has been a lot of motion lately regarding eliminating health disparities. Not implementing a universal health care program affects Hispanics and African Americans disproportionately (Democracy Now!, 2003). Those differences should be taken into consideration by the U.S. government in its attempt to successfully decrease the disparities when looking at access to health care and not only in articles critiquing managed care. Implementing a UHC program will affect the lives of African Americans and Hispanics by decreasing exacerbated conditions and deaths due to lack of health insurance. If reducing health disparities is a real issue there must be a program that will help these subsets of the population to have the same opportunity to receive health care. The exploration of these sources indicates that this is a valid barrier to UHC, as the U.S. continues to turn the other cheek when it comes to investing in the future of Americans. This barrier is impeding the implementation of UHC which has to be implemented by the U.S. government.
Another barrier that has prevented UHC in the U.S. is the failure to make it an ethical issue. "Health care services in the United States have never been considered a basic American right. Instead health care is considered to be a commodity" (Ayres, 1996, p. 171). Health care should be treated as a right, unless the government wants to be held accountable for all the deaths that occur each year due to lack of proper care because of insurance and money problems. There is no acceptable reason for Americans to be dying because of lack of money for health care. If not treating a person known to have syphilis (as was the case in the Tuskegee experiments done by the U.S. Public Health Service [Amdur, 2003]) is classified unethical, what classification is appropriate for allowing thousands to die because they cannot afford treatment? According to Article 25 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services" (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). It is unethical of the U.S. health care system to allow millions of people to be susceptible to death because they couldn't get health care for a treatable condition. It is a human right to health and medical care. Although a non-insured person is not denied medical care when seeking it, not having insurance leaves them vulnerable to not seek it because of the debts they will incur consequently. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to medical care, yet in the U.S. this right exists only for those who can somehow pay for it. Nevertheless, there is always another view on the ethicalness of our health care system. Harris et al. notes that in the cases of patients that have a very small chance of survival the treatment provided in the U.S. cannot be compared to other countries and that the efforts made to save a life are not equivalent to the efforts other nations make. "In many other countries. the expense of a heroic procedure would be avoided. In the United States we don't let people die if there is even a remote chance of survival" (Harris et al., 2000). I agree that doing everything possible to save a person's life is ethical, and in many cases expensive as well, but it should simultaneously be unethical to place a financial burden on millions that seek emergency medical care because they could not afford health care when their conditions developed. So we continue to see that this is a truly complex issue because many factors are involved in the lack of UHC. The government health organizations should identify this as an ethical issue and work on addressing it accordingly. Until it is made clear that health care is a human right and not a privilege of the insured this is a barrier to UHC.