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Should the government Provide Healthcare

Introduction

Healthcare is one of the essential factor element for human survival. The United State is

spending trillions of dollars on health care. In 2016 it spent 17.9 percent of the gross domestic

product (GDP) and the percentage is expected to rise 5.5 percent annually up to 2026 where it is

estimated to be 19.7 percentage of the GDP (Smith & Medalia, 2014). To enable people to afford

health care, there are various programs put in place by the governments, and non-government

organizations such healthcare insurance program, Affordable Care Acts, and Obamacare which

has focused on providing universal healthcare (Archenaa & Anita, 2015). However, despite such

initiatives, many individuals are not able to afford healthcare due to lack of finances. There has

been argument and debate on whether the government should provide healthcare to its people.

Healthcare is one of the essential element for human survival and every individual has a right for

affordable healthcare. Considering the importance of healthcare in human life, it is the obligation

government to provide health care to its citizen.

In Support

Healthcare is an important element for all individuals and it is the role of government to

provide affordable healthcare to its citizen ("Right to Health Care ProCon.org", 2018). When
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people are provided with healthcare they are able to carry on with various activities that can

improve the country's economy. To ensure equality in healthcare and to ensure that every

individual in the country is accessing healthcare, it is the duty of the government to provide

health care to all regardless of the people status and condition According to an article by

Procon.org, 2018, it indicates that over 28 million people in the United States which comprise

8.8% of the total population have no access to health insurance. The people in the United States

contributed greatly to the country's economy and the tax that the government collects from

individuals should be used to cater to healthcare and other essential factors in human life.

The proponents of the right to health argue that there is no one in the developed and rich

nation such as United State should go without accessible and affordable health care. The

government and medical organizations should improve public health, stop medical bankruptcies,

promote health facilities, reduce overall health care spending, and healthcare should be made

available and essential government services. Healthcare requires intensive investments,

innovations, and implementations of programs that require a lot of capital or fund that is not

affordable to many people in the state. The government should initiate a universal healthcare

which will enable every individual irrespective of the wealth, income, gender, age, or pre-

existing factors to have a health coverage (Post, 2018). Most of the individuals that live below

poverty line tend to suffer due to lack of accessible healthcare causing more death and other

health disorders. When healthcare is provided, all individuals irrespective of their status in the

society will have access to healthcare and thus promoting health conditions.

According to Post, there are different ways in which the government can provide healthcare.

One of the strategies is by promoting a single-payer system. A single-payer system is a strategy

that focuses on proving universal healthcare by collecting healthcare payouts and healthcare fees
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from singe organizations such as government. The single-payer system should be enforced

effectively in order to accomplish the health care goal and objectives of providing health care to

all individuals. Another way of facilitating healthcare is using private sectors to subsidize

healthcare coverage. Since private sectors are part and parcel of the nation's progress, they

should be involved in supporting healthcare. The other way is by issuing a mandate which will

require all individual in the state to have some form of healthcare coverage. The government

should not allow its people to suffer due to inability to access and afford health care (Moses,

Matheson, Dorsey, George, Sadoff & Yoshimura, 2013).

Opposing

On the opposing side on whether the government should provide healthcare, some

individuals feel that it is not the responsibility of the government to provide health care and

everyone should be responsible in catering for their own healthcare. Considering a lot of funds

that are used in the health care programs, the government should use such funds in other

programs rather than in healthcare (Right to Health Care ProCon.org. 2018). The argument is

that the provision of health care is very costly and is putting the government into more debt. To

reduce the government debt, individuals should be responsible for ensuring that they finance

their own healthcare coverage rather than depending on the government. It is noted is noted that

the government is spending over 17.9 % of the GDP and the figure is expected to rise every year,

a factor that will cause the government to spend more fund on healthcare.

In order for the government to provide healthcare, it has to raise more funds to facilitate the

initiates. That means that the individual is supposed to pay more in terms of taxes. The program

will increase the taxation rate (Procon.org, 2018). In European countries which provide universal

health care, the coverage cost is paid through higher taxes where the average payroll taxes are 37
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percent much higher as compared to 15.3 percent paid by the U.S workers. Other individuals

argue rights to health care will cause individuals to overuse health care resources. When

individuals are provided with the universal health care they will tend to overuse or misuse the

medical service for they are not directly responsible for the costs involved in implementing and

facilitating the facilities (Kelly, 2018). In one of the research conducted by Brookings institution,

they found that just before the Medicaid was introduced in 1964, individuals that were living

below the poverty line were seeking healthcare 20 percent less often as compared to those that

were not in poverty. However, by 1975 when the individuals living below poverty line were

incorporated in the Medicaid, those individuals seeking health care were recorded to be 18

percent more often as compared to individuals that were not on Medicaid.

Conclusion

Every individual has a right for healthcare. The government is set to cater for the well-being

of its people in various matters that affect or may affect people in their day-to-day life such as in

healthcare, security, education, etc. Healthcare is one of the essential and costly elements in

human life and the government should ensure it offers healthcare services to people. When

society is provided with essential services such as healthcare, it will promote peoples' living

standards and thus promoting the country growth and development. However, people should be

involved in facilitating healthcare programs and take personal initiatives by contributing to the

program and ensuring they do not overuse or misuse the programs. Promoting healthcare is the

responsibility of all individuals, government and non-government institutions.

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Reference

Archenaa, J., & Anita, E. M. (2015). A survey of big data analytics in healthcare and

government. Procedia Computer Science, 50, 408-413.

Kelley, David. "Philosopher David Kelley | Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Atlas Shrugged |

The Atlas Society". The Atlas Society, 2018, https://atlassociety.org/about-

us/staff/david-kelly. Accessed 4 Nov 2018.

Moses, H., Matheson, D. H., Dorsey, E. R., George, B. P., Sadoff, D., & Yoshimura, S.

(2013). The anatomy of health care in the United States. Jama, 310(18), 1947-1964.

Post, F. (2018). Should Healthcare Be Government’s Responsibility?. Retrieved from

https://www.formosapost.com/should-healthcare-be-governments-responsibility/

Right to Health Care ProCon.org. (2018). Retrieved from https://healthcare.procon.org/

Smith, J. C., & Medalia, C. (2014). Health insurance coverage in the United States: 2013.

Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics

Administration, Bureau of the Census.