The Prospects of Medicare for All

The United States is one of the few developed countries with no universal health insurance system. Despite the advanced medicine, the US health care system remains one of the main problems of the nation. All the blame is on the inflated prices that the taxpayers and the state have to spend on medical services. Most medical institutions in the country are private and set their own tariffs. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont makes a rather radical proposal. His plan is to create a system of single-payer healthcare, named Medicare for All. Under this program, every citizen pays a monthly health tax to the government, and in case of illness, they go to the hospital and receive all medical services free of charge.

The Sanders model completely excludes insurance companies from the healthcare sector. According to Morone (2017), “international comparisons reveal that other wealthy countries cover most of their populations with much lower spending” (p. 2). The single-payer system operates in Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Sweden and other countries. Still, some view the initiative as unachievable for the current state of the US (Huetteman, 2019). The senator also calls for control of the pharmaceutical industry, which he believes is “ripping off the American people” (“Health Care as a Human Right – Medicare For All,” n.d., para. 2). In the future, Saunders intends to expand the program to include dentist, ophthalmologist, home care, inpatient and outpatient care, treatment of mental disorders and addictions, maternity care, prescription drugs, and other services.

On the one hand, this reform is a way of making health insurance more accessible and reducing the number of uninsured citizens. At the same time, it might be more relevant to focus on maintaining the popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act instead, including the clause providing insurance for people with existing conditions. It is also clear that the implementation of the new program will require significant financial expenditures, which is equivalent to higher taxes. Despite this, however, I believe that the initiative should be passed. Americans will no longer have to pay their health insurance premiums and will not have to make any additional payments, which is undoubtedly a positive factor. Overall, the initiative is a reasonable replacement for the current health care system.

References

Health care as a human right – Medicare for all. (n.d.). Web.

Huetteman, E. (2019). Democrats debate whether ‘Medicare for all’ is ‘realistic.’ Kaiser Health News. Web.

Morone, J. A. (2017). How to think about “Medicare for all.” New England Journal of Medicine, 377(23), 2209–2211.

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