Universal Health Care has been a very controversial topic to discuss over the past years, because there are people in countries who do not get access to any form of healthcare because they do not have the resources to get it. Though there are many methods to aid us in achieving free UHC (Universal Healthcare Coverage), there is a costly factor to it. Many Organizations like WHO (World Health Organization) and UN (United Nations) are very adamant on a person being able to receive healthcare because they are under the impression that it is a Human Right. Universal health care coverage should be guaranteed to everyone because universal health care coverage can ensure to be very preventative towards many diseases, provide a healthier workforce, and universal health care coverage will ensure health care equality for everyone and for a much more lower price.
Health Care Coverage is mostly obtained by people who are financially covered, most low and middle income families do not have access to healthcare coverage. In some cases some families don’t have enough money because of the health care that they have to pay. As of May 22, 2018 there are two types of interpretations of UHC. Article 1 titled Approaches to Universal Health Coverage and Occupational Health and Safety for the Informal Workforce in Developing Countries, it states that the first definition is from WHO and is: “ensuring that all people can use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship”. The second definition is from United Nations General Assembly; “A health system consists of all organizations, people, and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore, or maintain health”. One of these focuses on financial hardship and the other does not. According to WHO, it is supposed to help the individual without giving the individual having to go through financial hardship.
Despite these two definitions being very different, they both have one very big similarity, which is that health care has the purpose to maintain health. One of the first reasons to achieve free Universal Health Care coverage is it will help in the long run to provide a healthier workforce. For example the author states in :Nurses perceptions of Universal Health Coverage and its implications for the Kenyan health sector, “that a total of 51 million uninsured individuals have a 40% elevated risk of mortality, and could be responsible for an estimated 27,000-95,000 deaths through 2025”. What this is generally saying is that people who are insured can have a much higher chance of being healthier because they have the sources. Although most people are insured, there are still a lot of people who aren’t insured due to financial struggle. There are millions of people diagnosed with HIV and only about half are getting treated because of the lack of healthcare coverage. For example there are people who were insured by ObamaCare because of the affordable prices but unfortunately, had to lose their coverage because it ended, in 2018 by president Trump. Most of the people who are uninsured are primarily hispanics and native americans. Clearly race is also a problem in this. The reason being that Hispanic men and women are generally the lowest paid race, which is a big factor in getting health coverage. This all meaning that if there are more people insured there are more people getting treated which results in a healthier workforce.
One of the seconds reasons why healthcare coverage is important is because it will prove to be very finiacial friendly. As stated in article: Universal Coverage Scheme and out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure and evidence from Thailand, “They assess the distribution of health across socioeconomic groups and equity of out-of-pocket expenditure on public and private health services in Thailand’s urban areas”. This mainly emphasizes that most people don’t have to worry about being able to pay such high prices. They can now focus on just getting the treatment. For example if one visit per doctor is only $1(US) and you get sick maybe 3 times a month, that’s $3, but if each visit is $100, then 3 visits is $300. The first would be better and many more people would take that offer, because it is cheaper. Many people would not want to visit the doctors 3 times and risk getting more sick because of the price. Now this is mainly focusing on the out-of-pocket expenditure which is what you have to pay that your insurance doesn’t pay, and most of the rich do not have to pay out-of-pocket, because they afford good insurance, and the poor have to pay more out-of-pocket because of lack of good insurance, but in this case everyone would have that and the rate of people paying out-of-pocket would drop.
The last reason for achieving universal healthcare coverage is to be preventative towards diseases. In the article: Inequalities in access to health care for people with disabilities in Chile, the author provides “The latest census from 2012 revealed that 2,119,316 people in chile have one or more disabilities, i.e. 12.7% of the total population”. This is significant because if people had healthcare coverage in chile, many of these disabilities could have been avoided. Medicine is very advanced and could have stopped most or all of those disabilities. It is not only in Chile that this is happening though, in the US diseases like influenza, HIV, etc. If everyone or the majority of people got immunization shots for influenza, there would probably be little to no people with influenza. If majority was taking HIV pills of the HIV vaccine, there would be people who don’t have vaccine. Right now only about half of the people diagnosed with HIV are getting treatment, and most of that treatment wouldn’t be needed if prevention treatments were available earlier.
As many believe Universal Health Care coverage is something that could tremendously help our world. The first reason being that it could prove to be very preventative towards diseases, and provide a much healthier workforce, it could also prove to be provide health care equality and for a much lower price.
References:
- Hsu, Y.-T., & Yang, C.-H. (2017). Universal Coverage Scheme and out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure: evidence from Thailand. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 22(2), 309.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860.2017.1291163
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- Koon, A. D., Smith, L., Ndetei, D., Mutiso, V., & Mendenhall, E. (2017). Nurses’ perceptions of universal health coverage and its implications for the Kenyan health sector. Critical Public Health, 27(1), 28.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2016.1208362
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=119952812&site=ehost-live
- Rotarou, E. S., & Sakellariou, D. (2017). Inequalities in access to health care for people with disabilities in Chile: the limits of universal health coverage. Critical Public Health, 27(5), 604.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2016.1275524
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=125035386&site=ehost-live
- Taylor, R. M., & National Academies of Sciences, E. and M. (U. S. . (2016).
Approaches to Universal Health Coverage and Occupational Health and Safety for the Informal Workforce in Developing Countries : Workshop Summary
. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1065519&site=ehost-live
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