Is Universal Health Care a Good Choice for Society?

1165 Words3 Pages

The World Health Organization defines universal health care as, “ensuring that all people can use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship.” This means that every citizen of a country will have access to health care; if someone cannot attain it themselves, then the government will provide it. This topic is controversial because the state provides health care funding for every citizen; it can easily be described as being socialistic. Also, without state provided care, every citizen may not have access to the level of care needed due to costs. This topic is especially relevant because thirty two of the thirty three developed nations have universal health care with the United States as the exception. However, recently the United States has adopted the Affordable Care Act, which possess traits of universal health care. Universal health care is not a good choice for society for three reasons. The first is that it lowers quality of care. Also, the whole system and the way it is set up could certainly be a burden on taxpayers and the government which could lead to some major debts. Third, it would be easy for people to abuse the system. In a universal health care system, the quality of care does not match that of a managed care system because because patients do not have as much say in their health care, wait times are longer versus a managed care, the actual care maybe viewed as less optimal, and doctors may not able to handle the stress of such a system. A universal health care system adds a political side to any type of medical decision because th... ... middle of paper ... ...e is like unhealthy food: it may look good at first glance, it may even taste good, but after a while with just that for food, some damage will have occurred that will take a lot of work and effort to rectify. Works Cited Goodman, John C. “America Does Not Need Universal Health Care.” Healthcare. (2009): Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 April 2014. Messerli, Joe. “Should the Government Provide Free Universal Health Care for All Americans?” Balanced Politics. Web. 1 May 2014. Owen, Carol L. “Consumer Driven Health Care is Less Effective.” Healthcare. (2009): Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 April 2014. Rich, Alex and Andrew Walter. “Universal Health Care: An Overview.” Healthcare. (2013): Points of View Reference Center. Web. 23 April 2014. “What is universal coverage?” Healthcare. World Health Organization. Web. 29 April 2014.

Open Document