There are major advantages and disadvantages to implementing universal
healthcare in any country. The face advantage to universal healthcare is that it
will be cheaper for everyone; however the downside to this is that healthy
people end up paying for other people’s medical care. According to the medical
Expenditure Panel Survey, “the sickest 5% of the population create 50% of total
health care costs, while the healthiest 50% only create 3% of costs”
(https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211). Another advantage is
that universal healthcare forces hospitals to provide the same standard of
service at lower costs. Because we live in a competitive society, medical
workers must focus on earning money as well as helping the patients. By offering
new and improved machinery, more complex operations and procedures and more
experienced medical staff, hospitals are able to compete with other hospitals
for the patients. However, the better perks come with a price; it costs a lot
more. It is understandable though, because machinery is very expensive, and
experienced medical staff requires more pay. A partial solution to this problem
is to rely on healthcare answering services such as Doctors 24/7 Answering
Service. They guarantee they have the lowest price
(https://24x7doctorsansweringservice.com/medical/healthcare-answerin
g-services/). A disadvantage would be that there is less of an incentive for
people to stay healthy. Because there would be no copay, people would definitely
overuse emergency services such as ambulances and emergency rooms. But a bright
side to not having a copay is that now people who couldn’t afford emergency
services in the past now can. Another disadvantage would be that there are long
wait times for some procedures; instead of getting fast, immediate care now,
there would be large delays for many medical procedures and operations.
Personally, I believe that healthcare should be universal and should be provided
to every tax-paying-citizen. However, I do know there are some major
disadvantages to this decision. Because healthcare will be available to
everyone, I believe that advantage immediately outweighs the other
disadvantages. To make up for some of the disadvantages to the universal
healthcare plan, we can come up with solutions that will make the disadvantages
better. One example would be because there would be a long wait time for certain
procedures, maybe clinics could open up that specialize in a certain procedure
or procedures. By looking both sides of the argument for universal healthcare,
we can see the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a universal
healthcare system. When we see both sides we can take a disadvantage and look at
it and see what can be done to resolve that issue or issues.