Achieving Universal Health Care in the United States, continued
by Isabel Rodriguez
Another barrier to universal health care is the lack of support from the medical field. "The dominant physicians' organization in the United States, the American Medical Association (AMA), has opposed most reform measures that would result in an equitable, affordable system for everyone" (McCanne, 2004). Although there is widespread acceptance and support for universal care the lack of support from influential organizations such as the AMA have hurt the efforts being made to implement UHC. "The AMA has supported an agenda that promotes physicians' freedom to maximize their personal financial reward, even though these policies may deprive tens of millions of Americans access to affordable care" (McCanne, 2004). This makes it unclear whether the field of medicine is truly one of treating patients and improving their health or a field of making profit. If, as was mentioned before, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every one is entitled to medical care, why has the AMA opposed UHC? This is not the case for all physicians however. There are physicians that are in favor of health care reform. "Many American physicians. believe that the funding infrastructure should be redesigned to maximize health care resource allocation for the primary benefit of patients" (McCanne, 2004). So there is support for UHC among physicians and there are physicians out there looking for the best interest of patients and not merely the best interest of their pockets. And this has resulted in the establishment of the organization, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) (McCanne, 2004). There have also been publications in journals stating that "nearly 8,000 physicians including two former U.S. surgeon generals are calling for a government-run universal health insurance system" (Democracy Now!, 2003). There is support among physicians for UHC and it can no longer be said that physicians do not support it. In the past the AMA may have been confused as to whether it should support or oppose UHC, but this is no longer the only physician organization in the U.S. I think the sources have shown that there are physicians for and against UHC. I think the sources prove that there is increasing support for UHC within the physician community. I believe that the sources have determined that this is an invalid barrier to UHC in the U.S. Support from the medical field is not rare, therefore this barrier is non-existent in terms of UHC.
Another barrier to UHC has been opposition from the American people. In order to implement a UHC program it is understood that government has to play a major role and implement and regulate such a program. This is where a lot of the opposition comes from. "Although people believe in universal coverage, they question the ability of government to achieve it" (Gorin, 1997). People doubt whether the government will step in and actually follow through. "The American people are reluctant to depend on large, government-run enterprises for vital services" (Tooker, 2003). Are these people really to blame? When you think about it the government has not done anything to this point to assure the 40 million Americans without health coverage that their health is not in danger, so what would make Americans quick to trust the government? However, many people aren't cognizant that "the greater part of health care in the United States - 59% - is already funded by the tax system" (McCanne, 2004). In reality most of the health care system is run by the government, yet people still say that government is incompetent in regards of covering the health of millions. What Americans really fear is "that a new 'national' system may dilute out their benefits" (LeBow, 2003, p. 73). Americans are worried that they may have to give up some of their insurance benefits in order for a UHC program to work. Yet so many polls have shown that a majority of Americans support such a program (Battista and McCabe, 1999). The underlying issue here is that Americans are not educated on the details of UHC and how it would affect insured Americans. If an effort was made to educate the public support would increase and the number of doubtful Americans would decrease. This is an invalid barrier since many Americans are unaware of what a UHC program entails and how they would be affected. Once Americans are educated, this opposition would greatly diminish.
Health care is a right. There is no acceptable reason for millions of Americans to be uninsured. The United States is one of the richest nations in the world. We have seen nations with less resources than the ones we have available making it a priority that their citizens be medically covered. To make matters worse, these nations are doing so with a fraction of the money we spend to cover just a portion of our population. Adopting a Universal Health Care system may not have immediate rewards and may take a lot of work to implement, but in the long run we would save not only millions of dollars but thousands of priceless lives. I think it is evident that these barriers to UHC can be overcome and that many of the so-called barriers are just myths and not reality. America needs to reincorporate health care as a human right and work towards granting health coverage for the millions of Americans that face illness and death each year due to lack of health care coverage. We can no longer hide behind some of these so-called barriers when they are not what is preventing UHC. The government must take action and implement UHC or the future of millions of Americans looks dismal, and the future of many millions more becomes questionable.