Universal healthcare - Essay Example

UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE The term universal healthcare is used for healthcare systems that are organized for the purpose of providing high quality yet affordable health care facilities to all citizens regardless of their social status. Universal health care system basically provides service requirements and health finances to the people of that country. This system was first introduced in 1883 in the health insurance bill presented by Bismarck’s social legislation in Germany. After this the old age bill, accident insurance bill and disability bill were also passed in 1884 and 1889 respectively. Hence, the first ever health care bill was introduced in Germany. In United Kingdom universal health care started in 1911 after the passing of National Insurance Act. It basically covered only the people who had job and also people who were dependent on them. In 1948 the National Health Service provided this service to all legal citizens. The health care reforms used today were basically put into practice the Second World War. The United States was the only country that did not approve social and economic rights sections in the Universal Declaration OF Human Rights in 1948 which included article 25 about right to health. Government involvement plays a vital role in giving health insurance benefits to the citizens and universal health care systems depend on their involvement as well. In many countries governments get involved to a much higher degree like in most European countries for example Spain, UK, Italy and other Nordic countries. They are responsible of giving health care services to the residents and it is based not on the purchase of insurance. Other countries look at this system in a different way. They give obligatory health and contributory insurance rates which are connected to the income of that person. And this is sponsored mostly by the company or the receiver himself. Health funds are mostly taken from sickness funds, salary contributions and the insurance premiums of the citizen in question. The health insurances are repaid to the medical providers at a very high rate from the citizen and this is done with the help of medical insurers. Countries like Switzerland and Netherlands have privately owned insurance companies that operate this system but are not allowed to make any profit from this except from selling other insurances. The health care services are typically financed by the government through mandatory payroll/social security contributions, general taxations or a combination of both for example general tax based funding is used in United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Cuba, Italy and Brazil (Tsounta 2009). The notion of universal health care is implemented world wide in various different ways. Mostly governments tend to widen the health care access and set particular standards for these reforms which are bare minimum so that access to the reforms is much easier. Taxations, legislations and regulations are three ways through which governments can execute universal health care. Generally, if a patient is admitted in the hospital, some of the costs are bear by the patient at that time but mostly the major chunk of the cost is covered by the help of insurances and tax revenues. Tax revenues are mainly used to help poor people or patients who need long time health care. The United States is the only wealthy country which does not support this universal health system but instead has a proposed reform. The budget office of the congress has estimated the cost of the universal health care system a lot of times and has collectively calculated the savings due to the removal of operating cost of the insurance companies. In America, now the new law require everybody to have insurance by the start of year 2014. It stops insurer from hiding his or her legal responsibility for health care requirements and this move can repair the bankruptcy faced by some people after any use of health insurance service. For some people it becomes a life time burden on their shoulders. The idea of universal health care is very wide and this helps it to be planned and financed in many different ways. All the universal health care systems in the world require some sort of government participation. This participation can be in any form for example through regulations, subsidies, legislations and mandates. The regulations passed by the governments form the basis of these health insurances. They decide who should be provided by this insurance, the kind of care that should be offered and last but not the least what should be the ground for the coverage of the whole health bill. In some countries the universal health care systems are controlled by the governments themselves but in some other countries universal health care programs are managed by both private health care sectors and government body. The universal health care system runs on the money of the general population. It is supported by the implementation of taxes, health insurance that is compulsory or both of them. At times half of the costs are paid by the patients themselves but the other half is covered by the help of universal health care insurance program. Many supporters of universal health care program say that single payer health insurance system is more logical and preferred way of going about things. Single payer health insurance system can be defined in which government is not involved in providing the medical care but do provide the finances for the care. Medicare and Medicaid are two examples of this. This notion of single payer health insurance also comes into the category of socialized medicine but is slightly different program from the original meaning of socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is the one in which governments provides both finance and health care facilities. Social health care and universal health care are mostly thought to be one at the same thing but in actual it is not the same. We cannot fully connect these two types of health care systems. In United States the term socialized medicine is used and in rest of the countries the term universal health care is preferred to be used. The term socialized medicine has various definitions attached to it but it mainly illustrates the health care that is sponsored by the government both financially and practically by providing health care facilities or even separately. But for some of the people socialized medicine is the one in which the government controls the full system by providing health care facilities as well as health care professionals or doctors. There are many examples of this kind of system in United States for example the medical centres of United States army, navy and air force as well as United States Veterans health administration. However, there is another group of people who think that any health care system that is sponsored by government, whether completely or partially, is a socialized medicine even though these things are actually provided by the private sector. Example for this type can be of Medicaid, Medicare or the US military’s TRICARE. The belief in the free market system also extends to the idea of health care going in the same direction. The question of whether this health care system should be profit based or not. This debate is still underway in the universal health care programs. The social programs have provided United States with many services that are useful to the community and are helping people in various ways. These departments include the police department, fire departments, public schools, libraries, Medicare, Medicaid and US military et cetera. The right kind of balance should be present for determining which way to go. Some of the European countries like United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Nordic countries support universal health care system purely by the help of taxations on the people. Some of the other countries in which insurance system is used provide insurance to the people who cannot provide insurance to themselves through social security systems. This can be done by either paying for insurance premiums or pay the medical bills of the patients directly. Compulsory insurance is the one in which citizens are required to buy insurance through the push made by the legislation that is passed on this regard. In other cases governments also provide these insurances. Some countries provide insurances both through private and public funds. In United States of America has passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that is dependent on this compulsory form of insurance. Many Americans believe that United States should follow the universal health care system. Providing all kind of health services which include medical insurance, health insurance and other health facilities et cetera to people who are not in the position to afford their medical bills. This would be in turn being very useful for those people and would not be a burden to them. This would also reduce the problem of class differences. But in order to follow this concept of universal healthcare program proper analysis would have to be made; costs and benefits of the system have to be analyzed as well. Like for example in Cuba although there is a universal health care system but the taxes public need to pay are so high that economy is going down and the working class is not making enough money. If United States wants to apply the universal health care system it would have to increase he taxes on the residents. His step would be difficult to implement because society would not accept it graciously and government would have to be very strict about it. Another aspect of this is that if the government is covering the uninsured people then the employers who are providing insurances to their employees would tempt employers to think of pushing the employees towards the public insurance program. This would put almost everybody on the public insurance list and the burden on the government would increase drastically. Many countries like United Kingdom, the private insurances do not cover certain areas which are either expensive or are provided by the state. BUPA is a very good example of this thing; it is situated in United Kingdom and gives a long list of exclusions. Now, in United States the last stage of renal failure is treated on the expenses of the government because the insurance companies do not cover these themselves. Mostly people with private insurance policies get there treatments through these insurances. The need for health care in United States has increased drastically over the years especially for the elderly people. In 1965 when Medicare was made law about nineteen million over age people registered for it. After some years about 40 million of the population was relied upon Medicare for health insurance coverage. This dependency on the Medicare is expected to increase over the years. No country in the world has a perfect system, and most nations with a national healthcare program also have a private sector that varies in size (Shi & Singh 2012). Medicare has become a very important part of America’s health care system. With the increase in population and the increase in the costs of the health facilities Medicare is becoming more and more popular. The years for receiving the Medicare have increased as well by three years for the citizen of United States. Different reforms are being made in the health care department like obstacles for fraud, schemes to reduce waste and abuse and the increase in drug or medicine benefits. Giving proper health services to the whole nation needs a lot of money by the government and in order to do this it needs to implement heavy taxations on the residents. As the number of recipients for the health insurance has risen dramatically, it is sucking in the funds for the health sector. With so many burdens on the health care delivery system in United States it is feared that it would crash. Single payer insurance system would really help the American economy because it will reduce the strain put on the public insurance. For those who are against universal health care services this is cost containment. Their main aim is to reduce the health care abuses and to educate people to not exploit these services. The negative impact of this can be that the patient would not be able to choose the doctor of his own will. The choice they get is very restricted by health care services as the doctors they get are chosen by the government. On the other hand the doctors do not have very good incentive to work. They mostly get a fix amount of money for themselves. In return, fewer amounts of students would want to get admission in medical colleges. Conservative policy makers and providers imagine that an universal health care program would actually mean low salaries, run down facilities, poor quality and endless waits to see a doctor, as with the British National Health service (Harrington 1997). This would have bad impact on the private health insurances as well. Proper incentives need to be given to the doctors as well so they are willing to work more. Some of the critics of universal health care say that putting the control of health care services into the hands of the government is not a very wise thing to do as the government can be inefficient and can have ulterior political motives as well. They also think that ultimately universal health care will push the small businesses and self employed to a limit where they would not be able to come up with the money for their health insurances and a lot of cases are coming up regarding this. Due to this reason the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which is a group of small businesses, are making plans to cut their costs so that they can increase the health care insurances. Bibliography Tsounta, Evridiki. Universal Health Care 101: Lessons for the Eastern Caribbean and Beyond. Washington, D.C: International Monetary Fund, 2009. Harrington, Charlene, and Carroll L. Estes. Health Policy and Nursing: Crisis and Reform in the U.s. Health Care Delivery System. Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1997.  Shi, Leiyu, and Douglas A. Singh. Delivering Health Care in America: A Systems Approach. Sudbury, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2012 Read More