Universal health care essay

Universal health care essay

Oct 05,  · Report The racial implications of medical debt: How moving toward universal health care and other reforms can address them Andre M. Perry, Joia The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. [citation needed] The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Mar 11,  · Health care should be free for everyone essay. Free health care is a system that offers quality medical services to all pervy person you can also call this universal health care. The federal government gives it to everybody irrespective of their ability to cover it. The absolute cost of providing quality healthcare makes universal healthcare a

health care should be free for everyone essay

Higher rates of COVID infection among essential and frontline workers put a spotlight on underinsured laborers.

Essential workers—those who perform a range of jobs and services that are necessary for society to function well, including but not limited to occupations in health care, food service, and public transportation—are less likely to have insurance and are more likely to be underinsured than non-essential workers. However, a Brookings report found that Black essential workers are more likely to be uninsured than white essential workers. Similarly, an Urban Institute analysis found that Black workers are more likely to be essential and frontline workers a sub-category of essential workers comprised of people who cannot work from homeand they are more likely to be underinsured.

The Urban Institute study adds that the problem of not having adequate insurance is even more acute for American Indian or Alaska Native and Latino or Hispanic workers. In order to achieve equity for the lowest paid and most essential frontline workers of color, the American health insurance and health care systems need a radical restructuring.

Andre M. The concentration of Black people in essential jobs did not develop through happenstance. Racism in labor markets is revealed in racial disparities in occupational concentration, employment rates, and pay.

For instance, Black people in Minneapolis, as in much of the nation, universal health care essay, are more likely to work in jobs considered essential—transit, factories, retail, health care facilities, and childcare—which increases their exposure to COVID There is a causal relationship between wealth and quality of life outcomes, including health, universal health care essay.

Occupational discrimination factors into how much wealth a family has and the resultant degree of protection a family has to withstand inevitable economic shocks. Medical debt among Black workers adds insult to injury.

An examination of debt as a function of wealth provides insights into structural racism—the policies and practices that produce racial disparities. Therefore, we introduce evidence that by reducing the amount of medical debt held by all households, we are disproportionately helping Black people, universal health care essay.

This will signal that we are mitigating structural racism and improving conditions so that Black workers and their families can thrive. Following that discussion, we review a number of policy reforms to reduce health care cost sharing that broadly would move the nation further toward universal health care.

According to a study from the Journal of General Internal Medicinemillion adults experienced difficulty paying medical bills inand young uninsured adults were about twice as likely to face hardship paying for health care compared to those with some public or private insurance.

Kaiser Family Foundation found that about one in four adults aged had trouble paying a medical bill over the last universal health care essay months. Many universal health care essay would not stay in riskier, low wage jobs if they had better health insurance options. Workers, essential and otherwise, stay in suboptimal employment because their employment is tied to their health insurance. According to Gallupone universal health care essay six workers experience job lock due to their health insurance coverage.

Decoupling employment and health insurance could reduce job lockwhich would free up people to start businesses and would increase wages because employers could reallocate insurance costs toward employee pay. But not all workers receive health insurance from their job to even experience job lock, especially low wage essential and frontline workers. In fact, even after the Affordable Care Act, in the first half of30 million Americans were without health insurance entirely, and Black, universal health care essay, Latino or Hispanic, and American Indian or Alaska Native people are more likely to be uninsured.

Living without health universal health care essay was a cause of a great deal of stress for universal health care essay Americans even before the pandemic, universal health care essay. Private nonprofit hospitals often do not treat people who are unable to pay as charitably as policymakers may hope. The tax exemptions were created to remove the profit motive of medical care and instead instill a motive of community and individual care, universal health care essay.

Health debt is associated with decreased use of medical services. According to NORC at the University of ChicagoAmericans are more afraid of the cost of the medical coverage than the underlying illness. Due to cost sharing, low-income individuals are particularly averse to using health servicesand, if and when they do, their symptoms and diagnoses have worsened, increasing health expenditures.

According to our analysis, 4. These households with high medical debt are at acute risk of decreased medical usage. Seniors, and particularly low-income seniors with chronic diseases, are more likely to become nonadherent to medical and medication prescriptions due to costs.

For those who are insured, medical bills, particularly through surprise billing, may also keep many from getting the care they need, including getting vaccinated. Clearly, having health insurance lowers the likelihood of medical debt and lowers the amount owed, but even households with health insurance are at risk of becoming indebted due to an illness or injury. The extent of the medical debt problem is not well known universal health care essay because there is not a centralized location where medical debt is held.

The easiest place to look is collection tradelines—when hospitals and other medical providers send unpaid bills to debt collectors. According to the CFPBroughly half of all collections tradelines are due to medical bills, affecting nearly one in five consumers in the credit reporting system. Medical debt is a leading cause of consumer bankruptcy.

Even after the advent of the Affordable Care Act inthat number has not decreased significantly. In general, healthcare services researchers rely heavily on these collections claims data, which as stated earlier, offer an incomplete picture of the total medical debt held by households.

So, the extent of the problem is significantly underestimated in the JAMA study as well as in most studies using collections tradelines. Therefore, more robust data collection methods for patient billing, expenditures, and payments are critical to understanding the barriers to achieving quality public health. For this analysis, we use survey data to estimate the amount of medical debt held by American households. Summary statistics from the Census Bureauwhose data we use in our analysis, show that nearly one in five households have medical debt.

According to our analysis, This suggests that while most households with medical debt have a relatively small amounts of medical debt, some households carry significantly higher liabilities.

The consequences often lead to seeking less medical attention in the future. In the wake of the COVID pandemic, individuals not getting the care universal health care essay need can have societal implications. The extent of the problem may not be fully understood, universal health care essay, but the consequences can be devasting to individuals and society.

The blame for a lack of health care coverage should not be rigidly characterized as a class issue. Black households are more likely to hold medical debt. Twenty-seven percent of Black households hold medical debt compared to These findings corroborate a Urban Institute report that found medical debt was also higher and more concentrated in communities of color than in white communities.

As we have said, having health insurance does not mean that hosuseholds are able to pay their medical bills. Non-Black households without health insurance are only slightly more likely to have medical debt than Black households with health insurance, universal health care essay. Black households are much less likely to have private health insurance.

Conditional on having private health insurance, Black households are about as likely as non-Black households to receive their insurance through work. Households with medical debt are significantly less wealthy than households without medical debt. Non-Black households with a positive net worth, universal health care essay, regardless of medical debt status, have a higher net worth than Black households.

This disparity reflects how the vast majority of medical debt is held by households with negative net worth. Black households are more likely to have medical debt at every age, but this debt disparity is particularly acute for Black households past retirement age, when households have access to Medicare.

Black households past retirement age still holding medical debt reflects how Black seniors have been denied the ability to build wealth. Eliminating medical debt has a small ameliorating effect on the racial wealth gap, benefiting Black people the most.

Here, we repeat the methodology from our analysis of student debt, universal health care essay. Cancelling medical debt shifts wealth up more for Black households than non-Black households, possibly revealing the impact of anti-Black racism on health outcomes, but certainly revealing the impact of anti-Black racism on access and coverage. Eliminating medical debt decreases the numerical racial wealth gap most for low and negative wealth households.

There is little difference for households above the 25th percentile. Again, universal health care essay, this relative reduction in the racial wealth gap was most pronounced for low-wealth households.

During his presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed eliminating medical debt. While congressional action to eliminate medical debt would be welcome, and the authors would support such action, unlike student debt, which is held mainly by the federal government, it is much more difficult to assess the size of the medical debt problem, where such debt is held, and how cancelling medical debt would work in practice.

We argued for student debt cancellation because the vast majority of student debt is held by the federal government, and Congress has already given the Universal health care essay of the Department of Education the authority to cancel student debt unilaterally.

Similar action for medical debt would require that the government purchase medical debt held by hospitals, colleciton agencies, credit card companies, and banks. Nevertheless, there are more realistic and achievable policy solutions that prevent families from acquiring the medical debt that has such deleterious affects on their health and lives. Providing universal health care that does not require significant cost-sharing, as we will outline, will be a first step in thanking these workers.

Employer-sponsored health insurance ties health to labor, reinforcing the centrality of profit over well-being. Incentivizing employers to sponsor health insurance has only served to widen racial, ethnic, and income inequities in access to health care—a direct result of systemic racism. Low-wage essential and frontline workers are chronically underinsured, often because they work in low-wage jobs that do not provide fringe benefits such as health insurance or paid sick leave.

As a result, high out-of-pocket medical costs such as co-payments, insurance premiums, universal health care essay, and deductibles disproportionately affect these communities. Additionally, the drawbacks of employer-sponsored health plans often supersede their advantages—disadvantaging not only employees but also employers.

The current system of employer provided health insurance shields households from paying taxes on their earned health insurance benefit. Employer provided premiums are shielded from income taxes, reducing workers taxable income. Perry In order to separate health insurance from employment, Congress should continue to improve the online health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, empowering consumers—rather than employers—to choose their health care coverage.

By design, online health insurance marketplaces are able to provide the same benefits to all who need coverage, which can substantially reduce inequities in access to care and job lock. Improvements in health insurance marketplaces can make them an even more viable option for coverage, rather than a last resort. Making health insurance marketplaces more viable, providing a subsidized public option, and expanding existing health insurance subsidies will both protect and empower consumers as they seek health care.

Other OECD countries have helpful models of universal health care coverage. The Bismarck model is a multi-payer system in which employers and employees finance health insurance, universal health care essay.

However, the government controls much of the cost-sharing. Further, the Bismarck model must cover everyone, and does not make a profit on offering coverage. In turn, the Bismarck model takes steps toward providing universal health care without financially burdening the consumer.

Right now public hospitals exist only as safety net providers such as community clinics and health centers that meet critical gaps in health care coverage for uninsured and underinsured people, even if they are not able to universal health care essay for the service.

Yet these safety net providers tend to have fewer resources and capacity to serve people. If we were to transition to a public hospital system like the NHS, Congress must ensure that these public institutions have enough resources and capacity to ensure access to quality health care for uninsured and underinsured people.

In a single-payer systemone public or semi-public entity would finance health care for all. Despite its largely universal coverage, Canadian Medicare coverage excludes oral and vision care, prescription medication, and rehabilitation services.

Universal Health Coverage explained

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Universal health care - Wikipedia

Dec 14,  · Something has to change. Looking at other countries, the practical solution is universal healthcare — preferably a single-payer system. Though some politicians might argue differently, universal healthcare isn’t a radical idea. The majority of Americans actually support the concept. In the rest of the developed world it isn’t even an Universal health care in most countries has been achieved by a mixed model of funding. General taxation revenue is the primary source of funding, but in many countries it is supplemented by specific charge (which may be charged to the individual or an employer) or with the option of private payments (by direct or optional insurance) for services beyond those covered by the public system Sep 29,  · Bibliography. Acheson, D., , Report of the Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health, London: The Stationery Office. Aday, L. A., , “Economic and non-economic barriers to the use of needed medical Services”, Medical Care, 13(6): – –––, , At Risk in America: The Health and Health Care Needs of Vulnerable Populations in the United States, San Francisco, CA