Government run healthcare - my take on it.

[BaronVonRotterdam]

Government run healthcare is probably one of the worst moves in United States History. While it certainly can be argued that there are both pros and cons to such a change in America, the cons are overwhelming and overshadow the pros. A single pro to government run health care would be that everyone in America and businesses who cannot afford health care currently will be able to receive it and then maybe be able to throw the money they were going to try and spend on health care back into the economy. However as this being the only pro that I believed to actually be widely accepted as a good thing it is still way overshadowed by so many cons. Some cons include: Skyrocketing taxes, removal of personal privacy / freedom, long wait periods, and inefficiency.

A widely recognized pro to government run health care in America would be that people and businesses who could not otherwise before the bill receive health coverage will now be able to. If every American had access to health care then the overall health of our country could skyrocket. Since everyone would be able to go to the doctors they could get routine checkups that could prevent deaths from major diseases such as cancer and diabetes by doing routine scans for these diseases. For example women who are of a high risk of breast cancer and without health care wouldn't be able to affordably get mammograms to catch cancer in its early stages. While for women with healthcare catching cancer early would lead to a dramatically higher survival rate of such terrible diseases. However the pros don't stop at potentially saving someone's life. Preventing a disease from occurring rather than treating it would save an insurmountable amount of money. It is undeniably cheaper to pay for a mammogram for example, rather than the treatment of breast cancer which includes chemotherapy, medication, and hospitalization among other necessary expenditures.

For most Americans the single biggest con to Government run health care would be the increase in taxes. However even if American's opt-out of using the Government health care then they are taxed for doing so. So assuming everyone sticks to Government run health care (and make private carriers non-existent) in order for everyone in America to have health care the government would have to pay for it either by taxes, or by cutting funding from other projects. However do to the political risks of cutting funding the most logical solution would be an increase in taxes. For Americans living from paycheck to paycheck as it is an increase in taxes could be the final push for them to fall into homelessness or extended periods of unemployment. With the increase of these cases it then creates a domino effect for other government run agencies involvement in the personal lives of Americans. This means those Americans who now lost their homes and jobs due to the increase in taxes would have to file for unemployment which would further increase our taxes creating a vicious cycle. Besides the personal shame for having to ask the government for help so you can survive Government run anything is terribly inefficient. If there was a poll to go out in America tomorrow which asked Americans how successful Government run operations such as Medicare, the Postal System, Social Security and others were, many individuals would be hard pressed to find that their needs are met by these systems adequately, as most of these systems are failing and have a increasingly growing amount of debt. With any malfunctioning government run system it is customary to throw money into supporting dead weight because it is now too much of a political risk to implement change to these systems or remove them altogether. Which raises another question, if the Government can't even run social security, or the postal service, how would they be able to efficiently run something as colossal as health care? Though some may argue that it is feasible the consequences of such an effort would be enormous. The most logical thing to think about first when it comes to health care would be to think about the doctors involved in providing these services. There are almost 308 Million people currently living in America(www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html). Of these 308 Million Americans it would be safe to wager that with all the jobs out there that less than 10% of the workforce is in the medical field. Keeping this statistic that would mean that there are about 30.8 Million health care workers in America. Now if one was to only count the actual doctors who could treat patients (not including nurses, or hospital staff) the percentage would be about 2% of those who work in the medical field. That means that there would be about 6.16 Million doctors to treat 380 Million Americans. From here one could easily imagine the waiting lines to see a doctor. It is conceivable that a broken arm couldn't be attended to for weeks or even possibly months. Now this is only true if you just count in people in need of immediate medical attention. If one was to factor in the people who now would run to the doctors at the first signs of a seasonal cold just because its free the amount of patient neglect would be staggering. However if one was not to throw statistics into the mix it could be argued that doctors would have major disincentives to practicing medicine anymore. With Government run health care doctors would have a cap on their salaries due to the Government having to pay for them to practice medicine. This would not only remove the doctors personal freedoms but would remove the fundamentals that America was built on. However doctors wouldn't be the only ones at risk of losing privileges. Americans when seen by a doctor would have to have all their records and information kept in a national database where it could be accessed by every doctor all around the country. With all this information kept in one place if some how these confidential records were made public the lives of many Americans could become under ridicule and scrutiny based on the treatments they get. For example it could be possible for a woman's choice to have an abortion to be made public thus putting her in danger or subjecting her to, ridicule and condemnation. However the loss of freedoms / invasion of privacy more than likely wouldn't end there. With the Government having to pay for all of us to keep us healthy they would logically tax foods and goods that harm our health to almost extortionist amounts to "persuade" us not to indulge in these free decisions to consume these goods. This is just another way Government run health care could be a really bad idea.

Many Americans will try to weigh the pros and cons of Government run health care. A pro includes health care for everyone in America, while the cons includes: Skyrocketing taxes, removal of personal privacy / freedom, long wait periods, and inefficiency, among others. However it is almost unavoidable that this system will be implemented without outrageous consequences to our freedom and privacy. With every American having to go to the government for health care the probability of the system not being abused by effecting other freedoms or by creating prerequisites for the use of this care is slim to none.

This essay is directly related to our in class discussions of Government run health care. In class we talked about how many Americans didn't have health care coverage and some potential pros and cons. This essay should be viewed subjectively as a possible outcome of Government health care and how it will affect the future of America both arguably positively and negatively. All above information can be sourced here : http://www.balancedpolitics.org/univers ... h_care.htm .

[Archangel]

Nice job Paintball.......I totally agree......and I'll add this......the government can't even manage what it's currently responsible for, now do you actually think they can manage health care too.......NOT.