Universal Healthcare

America is a country of freedom and expression of new ideas and opinions. However, this freedom comes with the result of many debates and opposing ideas. At the forefront of these debates is the implementation of a universal healthcare system so that all Americans are covered. This idea does have several pros and cons.

Pros

A national database. If the government provided the healthcare then regardless of who is treating a patient they would have access to the patients file so that they could get the exact patient history as the previous doctor described it.

Doctors would not have to focus on insurance plans. Doctors do spend a reasonably large amount of time learning different insurance plans and who is covered by what. Universal healthcare would allow the doctors to focus on treating the patient and no longer have to worry about learning the insurance procedures.

Patients who has previous conditions can get cheaper insurance. People who have a pre-existing condition often cannot get coverage because they are a liability. They are much more likely to have expenses because they already have a condition. A universal healthcare system would allow them to get coverage at a normal cost.

Cons

Nothing is free. Healthcare for everyone means everyone must pay healthcare for anyone. Taxes would go up or other budgets would be cut. And with the government's past record for low efficiency makes one wonder how much it will cost overall. This is mostly caused by government workers having no personal stock or selfish motive in their "company" performing well unlike private companies.

Patient overload. If healthcare is free then everyone will go to the doctor at the first sign of illness. The hospitals will be completely filled with people who have minor injury because the don't have to pay a dime.

No control. The government will begin to mandate all costs because it's "their" money. While with personal health insurance it's you and the doctors' call what treatment you get because it's your money. This will no longer be true.

Set salary. The government will have a specific salary that doctors get paid and this will mean that fewer people will want the job or work as hard because being better does not lead to being rewarded.

Health data risk. A centralized patient database would also mean that your records are available to thousands more people, meaning your confidentiality will be that much more likely to be compromised.

Job mix-up. Politicians would be the ones in charge of healthcare rather than your physician, insurance company, and you. This is somewhat worrying because politician really would have no knowledge of what they were doing.

No recall. Once this is in motion, regardless of how much of our money gets taken by the government, there is no turning back. Once this passes there is nothing we can do if we don't like it.

Long lines. It will be almost impossible to get treatment for a serious illness when everyone in the neighborhood is at the hospital for their cold.

While both sides have arguments, it seems to me the pros of a universal healthcare system seem to more of a convenience issue. While many of the arguments on the cons side are convenience issues as well, there are also some serious lifestyle threats and issues as well. We can always move to universal healthcare, but we can't move back. Taking a look at the nations who already have universal healthcare should be enough to tell you the right direction to go.

www.balancedpolitics.org/universal_health_care.htm