The healthcare debate is one that has raged on ever since the Obama administration implemented the Affordable Care Act, and one that will continue as Republican senator after Republican senator try to burn it to the ground.
But healthcare isn’t just about providing everyone with the tools to stay healthy. The healthcare industry must ensure that no man, woman or child is left behind without a plan.
While Obamacare did try to improve the healthcare costs for most Americans, it didn’t come without criticism. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2012 that 3 to 5 million Americans lost their employment-based healthcare plans because companies decided that paying a fee was more viable than actually providing insurance for their employees.
Healthcare shouldn’t be left to individual companies, who can decide whether or not to provide insurance for their employees. And that doesn’t even consider the unemployed, some of whom cannot work simply due to injury or pre-existing conditions.
But not only do we need to cover everyone in America, we must ensure everyone has exactly what they need.
Many minority groups in America lack quality healthcare simply because healthcare professionals are biased in their judgements.
Just to give one example, black women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, despite both groups having a similar rate of breast cancer incidence. A black woman requesting assistance following a mastectomy was shot down a white nurse. “You didn’t have surgery on your legs. I don’t understand why you would need assistance,” the latter said. Unfortunately, this is experienced by many black women up and down the country.
If healthcare professionals can’t get over their intrinsic biases, how will we ensure that appropriate care is going to everyone?
Others are denied healthcare just because they are portrayed as violent or a public nuisance. However, a lot of the time they are in fact the ones most in need of quality care.
The number of mental illness patients in psychiatric hospitals have dropped tenfold from half a million in 1950 to 50,000 in 2000. But that doesn’t mean hospitals have done a good job treating patients and sending them home. No, instead of sending our mentally ill to the hospitals, we send them to prison.
Across the country from Los Angeles to New York, mental illness patient are sent straight to the prisons just because people don’t understand their plight and are being portrayed as people who disrupt the fabric of society.
Many of humanity’s greatest minds and warmest hearts suffer from mental illnesses. Nikola Tesla, the father of the modern electrical system, suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. Stephen Fry, considered by many to be Britain’s national treasure, suffers from bipolar disorder. Could you imagine them being locked up, their intellect contained and isolated from the rest of society.
This cannot be the way we treat any patient, nay, any American. Everyone needs the ability to access affordable and quality healthcare, no matter their race, creed, gender, or disability. The United Nations decreed that by 2030, universal health care must be available for all, without anyone left behind. Many nations, such as Singapore or the Nordic countries, have implemented it in their countries. Why can’t the largest economy in the world do the same too?
References
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/14/why-we-need-single-payer-health-care-health-justice/
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43090
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/racial-disparities-in-health-care/
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/breast_cancer_rates_women.htm
https://www.oprahmag.com/life/health/a23100351/racial-bias-in-healthcare-black-women/
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/12/1028331
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