The American health care system is unable or unwilling to provide affordable health care to all its citizens. Therefore, as you are reading this column, there are people experiencing enormous difficulties because they cannot go to a hospital and receive health care.
This happens because the American health care system is a for-profit system, instead of being a Universal system that all the rest of the developed countries and even some countries still in development have. The Universal system provides health care and financial protection to all citizens.
Every American knows that living in the United States without health insurance is suicide. However, 47.9 million people in the United States, 15.4 percent of the population, did not have health insurance in 2012.
Health insurance is very expensive. The reason that many of these 47.9 million Americans do not have health insurance is not because they do not want it, but because they cannot afford it. Thus, based on the American way of thinking, the 15.4% of the American population who are too poor to afford health insurance are doomed.
The people who know that these people are doomed are the ones who deny affordable health care because they deny the Universal Health Care System. They deny it is because they prefer to make a profit from health care. This is not only immoral but almost depraved—they are basically making money from people’s deaths.
As a person who used to live in a country with a universal health care system, it is very hard for me to understand how the wealthiest country in the world cannot match the other developed countries in matters of health care. Even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights suggests that every person has the right to health care, this right is missing in the American society. Because we are talking about a developed country, I expect that one of the most important aspects of this declaration, the right to health care, should be respected.
But what I discovered was that money is valued more than people in this country. The industries related to health care are highly profitable; the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical products and equipment industry are some of the most profitable industries in America. Most states’ governments do not want to provide affordable health care to everyone, based on the grounds that it would increase the state expenditures.
Lastly, many people who are in the upper-middle class and upper class do not agree to change the actual health care system to a Universal system. This happens because if the states expenditures increase, they would be forced to pay higher taxes. But, what they do not realize is that at the same time, the cost of health care would drop immensely.
Furthermore, living in a society means championing for the greater good. However, if we look at what is happening in the United States, in terms of health care, people do not care about each other. We are literally observing people passing through extreme financial situations or even dying just because there is a majority that is only concerned with itself.
Thus, if we want to call America a civilized society, we need to make some changes in health care, even if it means the upper class people have to help the lower class; because this is another definition of a society. A single payer system, like the universal health care system, costs less to manage than a multiple insurer system.
Why does America continue to use this health care system? It happens because people are more interested in profit than in people’s lives; and they do not mind making money even if that means that people will die.
If this happens it means that the people who are leading this society are not the best because they need to open their eyes and choose the best option for the entire population not only for the wealthy. The only way to do this is to introduce a universal health care system which provides a basic level of health care to all people with a minimal and affordable cost.