Economics and Contemporary Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Economics and Contemporary Issues - Essay Example Behind this struggle, health care costs are skyrocketing, and two primary reasons for the increase find their roots in these same two groups. Life expectancies in the country are getting longer, and the aging boomers will require more health care for longer periods f time. Funding for the existing government health care systems is declining due to the same reasons that Social Security is facing implosion. More citizens receiving benefits are fewer citizens are paying into the system. The simple equation f higher demand -plus- lower funding -plus- longer lives -equals- higher costs. Secondly, the poor, uninsured and illegal immigrants who can receive health care at any hospital are creating increased drag on a system that is already suffering. Every hospital in the country will treat any person entering its emergency wards. If the services are not paid for, the loss is applies to the bottom line, and costs increase throughout the system. A third reason for the push for Universal healthcare is the pragmatic belief that in the long run it will reduce healthcare costs in general. If preventative care is available to everyone from birth, the result will be less-costly healthcare needs in people's later years. Early preventative measures also lessen the magnitude f epidemics; when more people are immunized and have access to treatment, disease cannot spread so easily. (University Wire, 2001) Former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop recently stated: "I think I am right when I write that all Americans have the right to healthcare," Koop said. "If we agree that there is a right to healthcare, then we are also agreeing that someone must provide these rights," he said, noting that the right to healthcare is different than some other constitutional rights because it incurs a monetary cost on society. (Anand, 2000) Two year ago, in a survey f medical- school faculty and administrators published in the New England Journal f Medicine, 57 per cent said they like a single-payer universal healthcare system over either fee-for-service or managed care. Indeed, more and more doctors are now keen to work in coalitions where they learn from and fight for the needs f those whom they have traditionally considered inferiors or adversaries. (Gordon, 2000) As a result, when President Clinton ascended the podium, and declared that universal healthcare is a right which Americans shared, no one questioned where the money would come from to fund such a huge expansion f the federal bureaucracy. This has become the clearest argument for universal healthcare, the right f all people to receive healthcare, in the form f physician visits and pharmaceuticals, regardless f their socioeconomic status. (University Wire, 2001) A person who is poor should not be precluded from the benefit f healthcare simply because he or she cannot afford it. Boomers perceive universal health care as another program to benefit them, and the poor / uninsured thought they were looking at a savior. The core question to answer, however, is not whether healthcare coverage is a right or not. The costs f health care are skyrocketing, and the needs f the population are increasing. The question is: What is the most effective means f bringing down