According to the latest figures, 47 million Americans (our of 300 million) lack health insurance. Given the high cost of medicine, this seems to be a serious problem.
In some cases, those without such coverage are actually reasonably well off. For example, I have friends who work state jobs that pay very well but do not provide benefits. Such people can afford to pay for basic services, but something serious could completely devastate them.
Most of those without insurance probably are not in very good financial straits. After all, most people get health insurance as soon as they can afford it or when their job provides it. For such people even basic care might be beyond their limited means. People do point out that hospitals cannot turn people away, but going to the emergency room for basic ailments is hardly an effective solution.
One problem with the situation is the fact that people actually do need insurance. After all, we do not need insurance for other basics, such as food. This is because food is generally priced so people can afford it. Of course, some aspects of medicine are justifiably expensive-MRI machines, for example, don’t come cheap. However, costs are rather high and perhaps needlessly so.
Will National Health care help?
Well, it depends on what it actually does and does not do. But, to keep it simple, consider the basic plan of requiring everyone to have insurance.
On one hand, this can be good thing. After all, with insurance people will presumably be able to afford medial care.
On the other hand, there are two obvious problems. First, there is the matter of paying for such coverage. Of course, we can always raise taxes and take out more foreign loans. China, I’m sure, would be happy to loan us more money. Second, there is the concern that such insurance will raise medical costs even more than they are now, thus making the insurance less useful.
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