Socialized Healthcare: Good or Bad? One of the biggest topics in health care in the United States is health insurance. (Maybe give a definition of health insurance because it is slightly different from medical insurance.) Moral obligations, right and wrong, and the different approaches to ethics play a huge role in the health care system, however some people see healthcare in the U.S. simply as a business. Because of this, there is much debate about who should receive what level of care. While in a perfect utopia everyone would have access to equal, top level care, this is not the case. Authors such as Kosa and Helman have closely analyzed the relationship between poverty and health care, and the resounding results are that the poor have access to a lower quality of health care. Furthermore, Doorslaer et. al reassessed poverty levels in 11 Asian countries and included health care as a cost and found that poverty levels significantly increased. (I think you should explain this more because it is slightly confusing as to what you mean) While I do believe that everyone should have an equal access to a high level of health care, I do not believe that this care should come at different costs, depending on salaries or net worth. One of the main things to consider when addressing the issue of poverty and healthcare is distributive justice. The limited resources that are available must be distributed in a way that is fair to each consumer and isn t biased or favored towards any one group or multiple groups. When looking at the allocation of resources on a macro level, it would be unfair to increase costs for healthcare to a wealthier population to make up for the costs that can t be paid by the poor. A strict regulation of healthcare and allocation of resources on a micro level can help lower prices for all consumers by limiting the unnecessary drains on the resources, (I think you should explain what an unnecessary drain is) thus lowering prices.
The beliefs on how to address this issue in today s society vary greatly. Those in favor of a socialized health care system believe that healthcare should be very affordable, if not free to the consumers. They believe that the government should subsidize the health care system with taxes paid by the people, and that prices should be government regulated. The downside to this is that there will be so much demand on a system that doesn t have the resources to keep up, and that many people will have delayed healthcare, such as seen in Canada. Furthermore, because it is tax subsidized, the health care for the poor will be paid by the more wealthy people, which some people disagree with. The capitalistic approach to healthcare would be to have prices set by the providers and businesses that provide health care, and that it should run as any other capitalistic business should. This inevitably means that better care ends up being more expensive due to the higher demand for it, which limits lower income families to a lower level of health care. I personally have spent a lot of time working in the healthcare field, primarily on an ambulance as well as in the emergency department. I have provided care to many people and have seen the patient-provider dynamic and how it relates back to the healthcare system. I believe that the current healthcare system is appalling. It is neither the ideal socialistic or capitalistic approach, but ties together what I believe are the worst aspects of both. The price of health care is already very high, and higher income people are willing to pay more for better healthcare. However low income people in poverty situations know how to take advantage of the system in ways that they don t have to pay such as going to emergency departments for all of their healthcare needs and using Medicaid in ways that are not fair to the rest of the population. I have seen the pain pill seekers and the drug addicts. The micro-allocation of our health care system doesn t prevent these people from obtaining free health care (you could relate this to our
first assignment about treating a patient with an infection due to drug use vs treating a patient who broke his leg during sports activities). This drains the resources and drives up the price of care for everyone else. In order to remedy this situation, I propose the following: Health care should be more tightly allocated so that people can be more accurately screened before obtaining it (How would you screen them and where would the money for screening come from?). Furthermore, limitations and blocks should be put on resources that are obtained for free. While this may mean that some people don t have access to the same level of care and may not seem to be a very utilitarianistic approach to the ethical situation, it actually is (How?). With the bottom end of healthcare more tightly watched, it will free up resources all around and will allow the price of these resources to drop (simple supply and demand) (even if the bottom end is more tightly screen there will still always be a bottom end and drug users; are you proposing that if they do not pass the screening that they should not get the health care that someone would if they did pass the screen?). The United States is a capitalistic society and it is what has made the country successful. Healthcare should be affordable and available to everyone, however to ask the working and wealthy classes to pay for healthcare for the lower income class is starkly against the biggest principle of distributive justice in this matter (Where would the money come from to treat the poor if the wealthy are not paying for it in one way or another (taxes)? Also distributive justice states that people will get as much as possible of what they deserve (what you put in you get out). So I am a bit confused because it seems contradictory that you say all people should get the same quality health insurance but you know that the poor can not pay for it so therefore according to distributive justice they deserve less than someone who pays more for it).
Works Cited Helman, C., & Helman, C. (2007). Culture, health and illness. Kosa, J. (1969). Poverty and Health: A Sociological Analysis. Leon, D. A., & Walt, G. (2001). Poverty, inequality, and health: an international perspective. Oxford University Press. Overall I do believe that there is an issue with health insurance in the United States. This is a topic with many ethical dilemmas however I find your conclusion contradictory to the solution of everyone getting the equal care that they deserve with out making some people pay more than others. In your introduction you wrote, While I do believe that everyone should have an equal access to a high level of health care, I do not believe that this care should come at different costs, depending on salaries or net worth., however I feel this is contradicting you conclusion. For example you explain that health care should be supply and demand, therefore better care would have a higher demand than not as adequate care and cost more money due to a high demand (which you state in your third paragraph). If the bottom end is more tightly watched then the upper end should be watched just as closely, because either end could be drug users and you should not exclude poor drug users but not wealthy ones. Also if you remember the first assignment, which I referenced before, you would want to tie in that even if the lower end was doing things, like drugs, and was screened, they should not be denied care. Thus both the screening and the care would need to be paid for; where would that money come from?
Also stated in your introduction I believe that you should give a more extensive definition of health insurance vs medical insurance. It is a common misconception that they are the same thing. Health insurance is generally more extensive then medical insurance because it allows preventative care where as most medical insurance is just to cover for an injury or illness. Additionally you may want to include the changes that Obama is trying to make to health care, since it is the most common government involvement in health care in the US. This paper addressed a very important topic but I feel like you need to include more vocabulary from our course; you pretty much just covered distributive justice. Some vocabulary that you should consider is a caring response, and moral distress. Also you used the sources very scarcely, you may want to add more outside information. You should also add the six-step process and how your solution uses the six step process to solve this ethical problem.