Although universal healthcare seems ideal it comes with consequences especially in the
United States. Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP program are regulated through the
government however individuals must meet certain requirements to receive these kinds of
benefits. For $Medicare the patient must be 65 or older and have worked and paid
Medicare taxes for 10 years and the patients that are under 65 usually qualify for Medicare
because they have a known disability. Receiving Medicaid , the patient is usually low
income that covers pregnant women, children and individuals who receive supplemental
social security. The children’s health program is for children 18 or younger and do not
qualify for Medicaid. These programs are easy to regulate because most people don’t ever
qualify for the programs or they don’t reach the age limit, especially with Medicare.
Universal health care is controversial because it is hard for the government to relate, and it
would cause issues when the patients want to receive care in a timely manner. $According
to Gabriel Zieff, Zachary Y. Kerr, Justin B. Moore, and Lee
Stoner ,$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ one proposal for universal healthcare recently pushed
included options such as a 7.5% payroll tax plus a 4% income tax on all Americans, with
higher-income citizens subjected to higher taxes . However, outside projections suggest
that these tax proposals would not be sufficient to fund this plan. In terms of the national
economic toll, cost estimations of this proposal range from USD 32 to 44 trillion across 10
years, while deficit estimations range $from USD 1.1 to 2.1 trillion per year(Zieff, Kerr,
Moore, stoner,2020). Universal health care would cost the united tons of money and
continue to put the country in debt. Master class staff stated In some countries with
universal health care, patients see long wait times or even have to wait months to be seen
at all. Governments focus on providing essential and lifesaving health care and may
neglect to cover rare diseases or elective procedures. With universal health care it is
possible that the patients will see a decrease in quality of care because hospitals, medical
offices, and urgent are seeing triple the patients and to see them all in a day they are doing
the bare minimum care to be able to go see the next patient. Overall universal healthcare
can be beneficial but the government would have to find a way not to tax the patients so
much in taxes and cause the government to go in $financial debt trying to offer free
healthcare to everyone.
References
Master class.What is Universal Health Care? definition, Pros, and cons - 2019.
MasterClass. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2022, from
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-universal-health-care#what-is-universal-
health-care
Zieff, G., Kerr, Z. Y., Moore, J. B., & Stoner, L. (2020). Universal Healthcare in the United States of
America: A Healthy Debate.(Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania),56(11),580.
https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina56110580
