Universal health coverage is one of many top wishes on boys
’ and girls’ Santa Claus list.
Universal health coverage is one of many top wishes on boys’ and girls’ Santa Claus list.
Sadly to say, Santa Claus doesn’t have elves who are trained in making such wishes at the North Pole workshops come true as Christmas gifts. The World Health Organization ranks the United States 37th in the overall health care system performance, although our nation is first when it comes to overall money spent on health care.
Almost every other country in the world has guaranteed health care for their citizens. In Canada, citizens pay half of what Americans pay for their coverage. Now, why is it that the United States, being such a rich country, doesn’t offer universal health coverage to all of its citizens?
There are people working at jobs they hate, sometimes two, for insurance, people who would like to retire early but can’t, or who have to deal with unsafe labor, employee harassment, or long hour working days, consequently leaving them unable to not spend qualitytime with their loved ones. Some would like to work on their own or start a small business, but because of health problems, they’re not able to because they can’t get health coverage they need.
And without insurance, you can’t get health care in this country. Without health care, your very life is at risk. About the only group that wouldn’t benefit are the health insurance companies themselves, which may explain the opposition there is to the idea of universal health care coverage. The insurance companies are working hard to persuade people that government paid health care isn’t in their best interest.
According to the ABC News-Washington Post poll a month or so ago, six in 10 people surveyed say they are worried about being able to afford health insurance in the future. More than one in six said they have no insurance. The government says there were 43.6 million uninsured American residents at some point during 2002, which makes up about 15.2 percent of the United States population.
Uninsureds in this country suffer and die at an early age. And many people with health coverage aren’t able to afford their medications because of their high costs even with co-pays and deductibles. With PPOs and HMOs, they can’t choose their doctor or hospital. Many can’t even get treatments they need for illnesses such as cancer, which is becoming a major concern for our citizens.
I personally know families who have had no other choice but to seek medical help in another country because of doctors who won’t take a look at them because they don’t have medical health care coverage. And there are those who do have medical health care coverage but aren’t treated as they should because of medical plans like PPO’s and HMO’s.
Health insurance is enormously expensive. Even those who are lucky enough to be insured by their employers still have to pay part of the premiums out of their pockets along with co-pays for doctor visits and prescriptions, and prescriptions can be “very” expensive which sometimes makes you think, “Am I really that sick to buy the prescription medicine or can I survive without it? Will some Extra Strength Advil or Extra Strength Tylenol do for my pain?”
Most Americans support the idea of universal health coverage. And why not? Universal health care would benefit almost everyone in this country. Small business owners would benefit by no longer having to pay the overwhelming costs of health care coverage for their employees. Individual workers would benefit greatly.
They would have much more freedom in choosing jobs, if they no longer had to take health care into consideration. People would have more freedom to go into business for themselves, if they no longer had to worry about health care costs.
Are we a less moral nation than all the others, we can watch our people suffer and die because we have not cared about health care issues? Are we really a nation under God if we deny food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, and care to the sick? I guess I’ll leave that one for you to make the final decision.
Cindy Hernandez is a senior at Live Oak. She will alternate writing for Teen Perspective with Yasser Elassal and Courtney Gavin.
