This article was a very nice article. It explained Universal Healthcare and costs of it. The information about the cost healthcare today was very valuable to my I-Search. The cost of healthcare is enormous today. 2.1 trillion dollars is spent on it each year and 700 billion of that does not go towards improving people's health, but towards unnecessary things like double copy of papers that need to be sent to insurance companies. I believe this costs can be cut down a lot by cutting out the private insurers and adding a single-payer system that does not require such paperwork. Another great (actually quite depressing) fact was that 18,000 people die each year due to lack of health insurance. We as a country spend 7000$ a year for each person but we are stilled ranked in 42nd in life expectancy. That is horrible. If we spent so much, you think we would be able to have a life expectancy like... oh, what is it... a country with Socialized Medicine!
This article, which was written by a very prominent Med. School and hospital, said that if the economy was in good enough shape, we may see changes in the system in 2009, which would be very exciting, hopefully they are for the better. I really hope that what Obama says he wants to do actually comes to be. I read on a different source that candidates only accomplish about 1/2-3/4 of what they actually say they would do if elected.
Some states like Maryland decided to try and give their residents insurance because they think health insurance is better on the state level instead of the federal level. I disagree with this because I think that some states will have a good system but others will have a bad system and that everyone should have the same system. In this article, it was brought that the government should pay for a minimum coverage plan but if people want more, then they could buy it for themselves. That is a good idea but isn't what I would do. Germany's system is like that.
Some sceptics of universal coverage were also mentioned in this article. One said that there aren't enough doctors for Universal Healthcare. There would be a need for a number doctors, physicians and nurses if people were able to go to the hospital. Some other people say that they don't want to pay for the obese or for people who smoke. I say that you should feel good about helping someone else. In the UK, doctors are paid extra when the do better and that does work.
One way Universal Healthcare would save money is that people would be able to stop disease before it got to bad. We would be able to focus on preventive care instead of treatment. If we did that, we would only pay about 50$ for the medicine to prevent the disease, not the 50,000 it costs to treat the disease.
This article was written before Obama became the elect President, so they did not say anything about him. I wish to find an article like this in a few weeks that studies Obama's plan and does a report on it.
