Hmos: Making A Killing Essay -- essays research papers

FACT: Currently 46 million Americans live without any health care insurance whatsoever. FACT: The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide health care insurance for all of its citizens. FACT: The United States spends more money per person on health care than any other nation in the world. FACT: The World Health Care Organization has ranked the United States 37th in the world regarding the health care a country provides for its people. FACT: No country in the history of the earth has provided universal health care coverage for all its citizens under a private health care insurance system. The facts stated above are not only embarrassing and frightening; they are simply unacceptable. How our country, which takes great pleasure in calling itself â€Å"The World’s Only Superpower†, is unable to provide health care for all its citizens is unfathomable. The citizens of countries in Western Europe have benefited from universal health care polices for almost 40 to 50 years now. Why can’t all of the citizens in America enjoy the same benefits? Especially, at a time our country is in the midst of its greatest economic boom to date. The answer is simple enough. What stands between the citizens of America and a fair, equal and effective national health care policy is one basic human emotion, or lack there of, greed. There is a huge disparity in the distribution of health care in America. Most notably between rich and poor but also between the races. 11 percent of the white population lives without health insurance. That is already a troubling number but it pales in comparison to the 21 percent of African-Americans, 21 percent of Asian-Americans and 33 percent of Hispanic-Americans that lack proper health care insurance. Lack of coverage is not the only problem in our current privatized health care system. There are also huge problems in the coverage for prescription drugs, dental, vision and hearing care, mental health care, preventive care for children, and treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. Health care in our nation should be provided directly by the federal government under what is known as a â€Å"single-payer† health care system. It is a program that would cover Americans from â€Å"the cradle to the grave†. In our current system, hundreds of billions of dollars go to insurance company overheads, unnecessary administrati... ...hat come along with any extended stay at a medical facility. Vice President Gore says he is in favor of â€Å"step by step† movement towards universal heath care; the same universal health care that he and President Clinton both promised to provide to all Americans 8 years ago in 1992. Since 1992, there has been an 11 million person increase in Americans without any health insurance at all. Sounds more like a step backwards than a step towards universal care for all. The only candidate that stands firmly behind a single-payer system, the only candidate who stands courageously in the destructive path of Big Business, the only candidate who is willing to take a stand, draw a line in the sand, and declare once and for all that health care is a basic innate human right is the Green Party Nominee, Ralph Nader. The Declaration of Independence states that all people have the rights to â€Å"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness†. Do you think that our founding fathers who didn’t have available to them the amazing health care treatments and techniques that we now have available to us would want us to reserve their benefits only for the rich? If asked the same question what is your response?