Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Background and Introduction

Proposals for a universalized health care system in the United States have been a topic of discussion since 1912, a time when Theodore Roosevelt was President. During his tenure he called for a “protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment, and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.” Many years later our countries leaders and citizens are still hesitant to offer Americans guaranteed access to health care without income barriers.
Currently the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. There are twenty-eight industrialized nations that have a single payer universal health care system and most are considered relatively successful. The United States however, has continued to rank poorly when compared to other industrialized nations with respects to its healthcare system. This is especially alarming considering the United States has the best trained health care providers and the best medical infrastructure of any industrialized nation.
According the United States Census Bureau, in 2006 forty-five million Americans lacked any form of health insurance and eighty-two million people went without health insurance for at least part of the year. Under a universal health care system, all legal U.S citizens would have access to health care. Universalizing health care would offer a government-sponsored

Locklear 2
plan to provide health coverage for all citizens regardless of income level or employment status. It would utilize a single payer system, which are publicly funded health
plans that put patients in control of choosing their physicians, and in turn would place doctors back in control of providing care. Under this plan patients would be able to see doctors without the many restrictions of insurance companies,...