Universal health care - Essay Example

The United States should have universal health care as a right of citizenship. There are many reasons why this should be the case. First of all, the United States is far from having the best health care system in the world. Second of all, despite reports and assumptions, it would not be too expensive for the United States to afford.Third, there is no evidence supporting the notion that universal health care would keep citizens from receiving services that they need. Fourth, freedom of choice will not be lost by governmental control and intrusion into health care.

Fifth, universal health care would be acceptable to the public because it is not socialized medicine. Finally, the problems with the United States health care system are far from being solved and the private corporate managed care facilities currently in charge are simply not doing the job that they should be (Battista and McCabe, 1999).The first journal article that was reviewed was 'Going for the Gold: The Redistributive Agenda behind Market-Based Health Care Reform' by Robert G. Evans. He claims that the role of the government in national health care has been debated long throughout history.

Recently, a push towards universal health care has resurfaced, but Evans does not necessarily agree with the supposed benefits that such a system would bring (Evans, 1997).International experience over the last forty years has demonstrated that greater reliance on the market is associated with inferior system performance-inequity, inefficiency, high cost, and public dissatisfaction. The United States is the leading example. So why is this issue back again Because market mechanisms yield distributional advantages for particular influential groups. (1) A more costly health care system yields higher prices and incomes for suppliers-physicians, drug companies, and private insurers. (2) Private payment distributes overall system costs according to use (or expected use) of services, costing wealthier and healthier people less than finance from (income-related) taxation. (3) Wealthy and unhealthy people can purchase (real or perceived) better access or quality for themselves, without having to support a similar standard for others.

The second journal article that was reviewed was 'Health Care Reform and the Future of Physician Ethics' by Susan M. Wolf. Wolf (1994) claims that proposed health care reforms such as universal health care systems, "threaten to exacerbate tensions physicians already face in trying to balance traditional duties to individual patients against increasing pressure to serve broader societal and institutional goals." She also claims that these proposals risk bringing ethical challenges before physicians (Wolf, 1994).

The third journal article that was reviewed was 'Health Care Reform: Lessons from Canada' by Raisa Berlin Deber. This article takes a relatively unbiased viewpoint to the issue, as opposed to the clearly biased articles reviewed above. However, the article does point out some disadvantages to universal health care based on the Canadian model that is currently in place that are worthy of discussion. First of all, the author points out that the universal health care system in Canada continuously seems to be in a state of crisis.

According to the author, "Current issues in financing and delivering health care in Canada deserve attention. Key dilemmas include intergovernmental disputes between the federal and provincial levels of government and determining how to organize care, what to pay for (comprehensiveness), and what incentive structures to put in place for payment" (Deber, 2003). The website article that was chosen for review was 'How to Achieve Universal Coverage with Market-Based Reforms' by the Pacific Research Institute.

This article took a slightly different approach to describing its opposition to universal healthcare. Instead of stating reasons the Institute was opposed