A highly debatable topic in the health care industry is universal healthcare in
the United States. Many Americans including politicians and government
officials have pushback regarding the future of health coverage in America.
Some of the top disadvantages of universal healthcare include significant
upfront cost, logistical challenges, and increased government involvement.
There are some key arguments against Universal Healthcare as to why those
who are not in favor of this change. First, even though most Westernized
nations utilize universal healthcare, the U.S. is geographically larger, more
populous, and ethnically/racially more diverse. Second, is the upfront cost to
implement this change which includes 1) physical and technological
infrastructure changes in the healthcare system at the federal, state, and local
level. 2) Insuring/treating uninsured and largely unhealthy segment of the
population. 3) expansion of the range of services provides such as dental,
vision, and hearing. One proposal that has received pushback would result in a
7.5 percent payroll tax plus a 4 percent income tax on all Americans regardless.
Besides these changes the estimated increase in federal cost would range from
32 to 44 trillion USD across a ten-year time frame (Zieff, et al, 2020).
Besides the federal cost there are also logistical concerns with Universal Health
Coverage. This includes possible system inefficiency, long wait-times for
patients, and hampering of medical entrepreneurship and innovation. An
example of these concerns is in Canada where the average waiting list for
procedures was 1,40,791 in 2017 and a median wait time for arthroplastic
surgery of 20-52 weeks (Zieff, et al, 2020). Those who are opposed are
identifying negative outcomes of universal health coverage in other countries to
help support their argument.
Lastly, many Americans simply believe that the government should be less
involved in health care coverage or unwanted government involvement. The
Clinton Administration’s Health Security Act was labeled as “government
meddling” in medical care that would result in “big government inefficiency.”
This topic will most likely continue to get heated and it’s important to argue
facts and numbers when explain why universal health coverage is good or bad
for Americans.
References
Zieff, G., Kerr, Z. Y., Moore, J. B., & Stoner, L. (2020, October 30).Universal Healthcare in
the United States of America: A healthy debate. Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania).
Retrieved February 14, 2022, from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7692272/
