Health Care: Right or Privilege - Research Paper Example

? Health Care: Right or Privilege HEALTH CARE: RIGHT OR PRIVILEGE It is clear that a majority of us are working hard to get a goodhealth care, but the most pressing concerns are the daily increase of health care cost and the deficient of access to health facilities. Most countries face an economic problem, which is the high cost of health care and health insurance. The recent findings collected by World Health Organization (WHO) shows that approximately 4.3 million health care professionals are needed in the world. Many national constitutions today recognize that every individual has the right for a better health, and require the state to cater for healthcare services. The lack of fulfilling these obligations is considered as abnegation to health care. This paper discusses the ethical problems faced by the lack of better health care and how the different classical theories can be used to finish the problem. Ethics is referred to as the philosophy of morality. It examines the determination to obligation. There are different concepts to explain morality and ethics. Morality is the decision we make when we do right or wrong, and things we desire, it refers to a specific class of behavior. Moral philosophy is behavioral study, which may be achieved through the obligation empirical study. Normative ethics is the study of what moral beliefs ought to be (Frankena, 2002). Rising cost is a major issue affecting most people since they get worried on how they will pay the high amount of money required for health care and health insurance, and yet their income is not capable of sustaining their daily lives. 18 % of Americans say that the biggest expense recorded monthly is the cost of health care, which excludes mortgage or rent payments. A majority of them express that the health insurance bounties have risen over the past years. 23 % of Americans still agree that they have had problems when paying their medical bills in the past years. More than 21% said that they had an overdue in medical bill, and 19 % were experiencing financial consequences over the past years due to the high medical bills. Those who had problems to pay their medical bills reported that 85 % of the bill was for doctor bills, 62 % was for lab fees and 56 % was for prescription. Health insurance is a problem to most of us, since we are not able to afford and those that are insured are worried and disturbed that they might not be able to pay consistently for the next few years, or might lose the health insurance because of losing their job. It is very sad that while the society has problems on health care, the two institutions; pharmacy and insurance make huge profits by driving the cost of health up (Snyder, 2006). The uninsured have no source of health care, and when they suffer chronic illness, they receive less treatment. Treatment delays because one is not insured, have deadly consequences, in overall. A study indicates that adults without health insurance have 25 % chance of dying than insured adults. It is critical to point out that, a majority of uninsured people are healthy young adults who refuse to take health insurance since they do not need it. About 4 % of the workers only admit taking health insurance because of their employers. Perhaps most of the uninsured are not employed; hence, they cannot afford the cost of health insurance. The government should provide health care to support all those that are uninsured. It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that all workers have insurance to health care, to avoid inconveniences brought about by lack of proper health care. It is estimated that eighteen thousand deaths, which are premature, occur every year due to the cases of lack of insurance; this is common when these people suffer acute illness. Uninsured individuals experience poor outcome since they are not able to access services on time (Snyder, 2006). The government should increase the amount of money given to health care services since the demand for better health care increases a daily basis. The term allocation indicates the process that determines the resources, which will be distributed, for individuals and population for health care. Chronic illness among individuals has risen, and advanced treatment is then required. A standard treatment of patients, call for advanced drugs and modern equipments, which have a high cost. Without standard treatment, the patients will experience problems during the process of diagnosis and prognosis this is because of inefficient treatment (Turner, 2005). Physicians should always interact with patients in issues pertaining their health and treatment. This is so since many sick people fear prolonged death under unwanted technology. This conversation is very important in that it allows the understanding of a patient’s values and beliefs. Professionals such as social workers and nurses, who are trained to counsel people, should be helpful in times that moral conflicts arise, in order to avoid problems. If the matters are not resolved according to the patient’s treatment desires, the surrogate is notified, and treatment can be discontinued and given to a professional (Frankena, 2002). If the above is not the case, then an attempt to a moral accommodation to meet the patient’s needs, the providers and the patient’s family will be required. Good communication is necessary between the physician and his patient, and it is also good to emphasize to the patient that emotion preparedness is required to counter the forth coming events and decision coming. Confidentiality is among the important ethnical issues this refers to the protection of patient information, which is confidential between the patient and doctor. The early medical records of patients were free and easily accessed by everybody, but this is not the case nowadays. Most health centers and hospitals today value and uphold the confidentiality of patient information. Discussions that pertain to treatment, which occurs between patients and physicians, should not be revealed (Turner, 2005). Since doctors and nurses are, still human beings, they should also protect themselves from communicable diseases, which can be transmitted by patients whose medical history is not clear or available. Doctors, nurses and other professionals have the right to prevent themselves from diseases that can be transmitted during the treatment of patients, but they have to be careful not to make the protective measures apparent so as not to put the patient in an uncomfortable situation (Farmer, 2005). Medical research is an ethical issue facing the health care industry. Developing countries are shifting their research to other, developed countries due to the quickness, ease of the research and less investment required. It is easy to approve ethical regulations in countries, which are developing where companies that manufacture drugs do not value healthcare in those areas. Care and concern should be taken while dealing with ethnical issues, which are in the health care body (Frankena, 2002). Professionals should be trained to maintain patient welfare and have a defined ethnical code written as their main responsibility in decision-making. All these can be used to resolve the issues arising from the health care industries (Gillon, 2009). Virtual ethics is associated with what kind of persons we should be, but individuals do not know the rules that govern this concept. Virtual ethics focuses on the good side; however, not the right side, where behaving a right manner is less required than being a good person. On health matters concerning a fellow citizen, it should be a great issue on the society, but not for the individual alone. Following the virtual ethics, one becomes selfish, not bothered with the situation of other fellow citizens but only concerned with personal gain. Doctors should always be ready to help patients and understand that they are doing that with the objective of flourishing dynamically. People should also take part in helping others who are admitted in hospitals, they should volunteer to donate blood to patients who are in need. Medical professionals should not perform their duty with the sole objective of getting profits in the end; instead, they should give the health of patients the priority it requires (Frankena, 2002). Deontological theories are those that think that matters concerning right or wrong are those matters that adjust your behavior, which set moral rules. It has a great, fundamental importance in medicine where the physician should prescribe the proper medication to the patient. Doctors should maintain a good conversation with patients, and respect each other. Nurses have a great responsibility in attending to the care of the patient so that he or she may have the respect required for life, health care and have individual freedom (Gillon, 2009). Utilitarianism indicates that an action is much far right if the action produces a higher value of good than evil. The most famous version claimed that the effects that happen for all people caused by the action should be considered. Utilitarianism can also be said to be the creed that accepts the foundation brought about by morals, which is the principle of the greatest happiness. Medicine is a limitless art to the health care economist, but also a very costly science. Doctors have the reputation capacity to do more, where they can perform very expensive admissions to their patients so that they may fulfill the needs of their patients. It is a traditional stance where doctors believe that patients are an isolated universe to them. When the physician is confronted with a case where his work involves a contest for hardly found medication, the professional would just plead with all the causes of the patient by all means (Crisp, 2000). When the decision of the physician involves more individuals than his patient, and still has other public commitment to the public health, he has to consider other issues. Many medical professionals are not prepared to improve their persuasion principle to shake their duty to the patient’s personal interest. All the same, decisions that affect more than one patient; producing more medication, work or spending money, for a single patient will bring about leaving for another. At last, the colleagues bind the physician, to get into a state of one against many, which is a constraint of the commodity fitness. Despite the fact that the treatment is simple and cheap in most cases, situations like renal dialysis, treatment prioritization will pose a significant event of dilemma where some patients will not be treated and eventually perish (Frankena, 2002). The view that states that anything right is also good for an individual is known as ethical egoism. It is meant that the action, which brings out, the good or the smallest evil effects, is the right action. The second part is where the consequences are on a single person, where the person acts to his own self-interest. In health, virtual egoism is seen when some people consider that health care is a privilege, but not a right (Gillon, 2009). They also say that health care is not a society responsibility, but an individual’s responsibility, so that they may not help their fellow citizens who are unable to pay for their health care services. In some hospitals, health care is regarded as a business rather than the promotion of health services. Marketers and hospital authorities should maintain health standards and guidelines by preventing corporate marketing, this will ensure that patients’ health is prioritized and promoted. It is unethical for some hospitals to ask for payment even before treating a patient who might be in a critical condition. The patient might die due to lack of cash at that moment he or she made contact with the hospital, only to find out later that the patient had enough money somewhere, which could have catered for his or her treatment. As much as making profits is important, marketing and managing healthcare should not surpass the objective of first ensuring health and life in a patient (Frankena, 2002). The possibility that holds moral ethics is relativism, which for instance is relative to one’s culture. The typical model is the key to a right or a wrong action practiced in the society. The action may be virtuously right in one ethnical society, but wrong in a different society. If relativism is correct, it is very difficult to solve moral conflicts or reach an agreement on matters brought by different societies. Most people reject the theory of ethical relativism, since it can affect the health care unit. Taking relativism into health care, racism, skin color and culture, may be the critical issues affecting most people. A patient may refuse to be treated by a doctor who comes from a different culture as compared to the patient’s culture, where the patient may ask for another doctor from his or her culture. This ethnical act of relativism may waste a lot of time; furthermore, a patient is likely to succumb to illness after refusing to be attended to by a doctor from a different society or cultural background. A Patient from a poor country, suffering from critical disease that cannot be treated from his or her own country may not travel to another country, which has advanced treatment facilities, this leads to unjustified painful death (Snyder, 2006). The most accented controversy that does not support ethical relativism is got from people asserting the moral standards, which may subsist, if not, all believes and practices changes from culture to culture. A very good example is the treatment given to the Jews under the Nazi society, which was virtuously deplorable in regard to the moral notion of the Nazi society. Everybody should have a right to health care where everybody should be treated equally. In health care, the most difficult situation is that majorities of the conditions are not equal, but should include fair treatment to everyone in need (Turner, 2005). Health care centers should be honest when giving the right information to patients. While advertising, the information given should not be misleading, but should be accurate and correct, where the primary objective should be the patient’s welfare. Physicians should not discriminate patients due to their race, religion, caste or color; they should not place their own interest ahead of a patient’s welfare or end up compromising his or her care (Frankena, 2002). Emotivism is the state whereby ethical theories are try to get what the morally bad and good wants to extrapolate. Emotivism entails how one feels about a certain issue, but should not be translated wrongly by letting our feelings determine our decisions. Nurses are greatly affected by emotions when attending to patients, and as a result, they end up giving them proper care while other people might risk their life by donating their body parts (Gillon, 2009). Due to emotions, a person may donate his or her kidney, which is a good and honorable act, but at the same time, it is a huge health risk. Conclusion I confidently say that health care should be a right rather than being a privilege. It is right for all individuals to have better access to healthcare since human beings cannot be compared to animals. Looking at the ethnical theories, we should be able to improve the standards of the health care unit, by helping one another in the journey to a healthy world. References Crisp, R. (2000). Mill on Utiliarianism. London: Routledge. Farmer, P. (2005). Pathologies of Power:Health, Human Rights and the new war on the poor. Los Angeles: University of Califonia Press. Frankena, W. (2002). Ethics. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Gillon, R. (2009). Principles of health care ethics. London: Wiley. Snyder S. (2006). Physicians Information and Education Resource. New york: Oxford University Press. Turner, B. (2005). Medical Power and Social Knowledge. London: Sage. Read More