Much debate lately has centered on the fact that the current health care system in the United States is dysfunctional for Americans. According to a Gallup poll, 44 percent of Americans are very dissatisfied with the affordability of health care while only 17 percent of Canadians, who have a universal health care system, are dissatisfied.
A universal health care system provides all citizens with some form of health care regardless of their ability to pay. Obama’s idea for health care reform would provide citizens with an opportunity to acquire the quality, affordable health care that they need by giving credit to those who have less and decreasing the monetary credits as their incomes rise. All industrialized countries and some third-world countries have been providing some form of universal health care to all of its citizens; we need to do so as well.
According to the Committee on Education and Labor, House Resolution 3200 (H.R. 3200) is designed to control health care costs, preserve health care choices and to ensure quality, affordable health care for all Americans. In order to control these costs, we must provide an option of health care that is not for profit.
According to the American Journal of Medicine, about 62 percent of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. This is why government involvement in health care is essential; only it can provide a system that is affordable for all Americans.
Some argue that this bill is “evil,” but it’s important to identify inaccuracies in their rhetoric. Sarah Palin suggested in an Associated Press article that Obama’s health care plan would call for the creation of “death panels” which would decide whether or not someone gets to live based their level of productivity in society.
Despite the fact that, according to an NBC poll, 45 percent of Americans believes that this bill would create these types of death panels, the non-partisan www.factcheck.org states that there is no mention of such a thing anywhere in the HR 3200 document.
Another common inaccurate argument is that H.R 3200 would bankrupt the country. According to www.whitehouse.gov, this bill would make it possible to provide affordable health care for all Americans for the next ten years without adding a penny to the current deficit. This will be done by re-distributing funds that are already used for health care, eliminating subsidies for insurance companies and by cutting waste and fraud out of the current system.
For a young adult, the best insurance rate premium is $47 a month with a $1,000 deductible. That’s about six hours of work to pay for a plan that doesn’t even cover regular check-ups, prescriptions or preventative tests, and then we wonder why, according to Gallup, 1 in 5 young adults don’t have health insurance.
This bill is not going to cost you anymore than you already pay. It will provide quality, affordable health care for every American citizen. It will still allow you to choose private health care, and it will, obviously, not pull the plug on your grandma. This is not about politics; it’s about allowing our citizens to receive the proper, affordable health care that they deserve.