If someone you love got into a horrific accident and the doctor claims they cannot perform surgery because your significant other does not have health care.
In that instant, would you not desire universal health care in order to save your loved one? Health care is the maintenance of health through diagnosis and the treatment of any illness or disease. In general, healthcare is a necessity for the welfare of society because people without health care do not get enough Uninsured people receive less medical care and less timely care, they have worse health outcomes, and lack of insurance is a fiscal burden for them and their families. Moreover, the benefits of enlarging coverage outweigh the costs for added services. Before the 1800s, in the U.S.
, women were expected to take care of illnesses within the family but if someone got really sick, they went to see a doctor. In early America, medication were both home remedies and doctor prescriptions. Many herbs were were used to heal or help heal illnesses. The practice of childbirth and delivering babies was a common profession for women, since most births took place at home. Until the mid eighteenth century Western medicine was based on the ancient Greek principle of “four humors”—blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Balance among the humors was the key to health; disease was thought to be caused by too much or too little of the fluids.
The healing power of hot, cold, dry, and wet preparations, and a variety of plants and herbs, were also highly regarded. When needed, people called on “bone-setters” and surgeons, most of whom had no formal training. People, such as doctor or other health professionals started coming to America in the late colonial period. The very first medical college was opened at the University of Pennsylvania in 1765 and they were looking for licensed physicians. Medical schools were usually established by physicians who wanted to better health in America and raise the medical profession to the high status it enjoyed in Europe and in England.
With scientific training, doctors became more authoritative and practiced medicine as small entrepreneurs, charging a fee for their services. In the early 1800s, both in Europe and in the United States, physicians with formal medical training began to stress the idea that germs and social conditions might cause and spread disease, especially in cities. Many municipalities created “dispensaries” that dispensed medicines to the poor and offered free physician services. Epidemics of cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and yellow fever, and concerns about sanitation and hygiene, led many city governments to create departments of health.
New advances in studying bacteria were put to practical use as “germ theory” became the accepted cause for illness. It was in the face of epidemics and poor sanitation, government-sponsored public health, and healthcare that private healthcare began to systematically diverge. The starting documents of our nation supports that everyone is entitled to free healthcare. Thomas Jefferson and the members of the rest of the Continental Congress believed that everyone has inalienable rights that no one could take away from.
According to the Declaration of Independence, all men have “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” This means that healthcare is an essential component because its needed in order to fulfill the people’s happiness. The people’s happiness cannot be taken away from them because it a God given right; therefore, all Americans are suppose to have the right to face healthcare without paying a dime. Having universal healthcare will rescue many American lives.
Without healthcare, people rather stay in their homes with their disease instead of getting a diagnostic test because a doctor checkup could be quite costly. This is called suicide. America is letting its own people get sick enough and take their lives because a doctor’s visit could be expensive. Harvard University researchers found a study in 2009 where citizens that were uninsured had a 40% increased risk of death among the uninsured (Should All Americans Have the Right to Healthcare?, Procon.org).
This means that people rather die than pay a ridiculous amount of money simple procedures such as getting an X-ray at a local healthcare clinic. In 2011, a study established that due to a lack of timely and effective health care, the United States ranked at the bottom of a list of 16 rich nations in terms of preventable mortality. In Italy, Spain, France, Australia, Israel, and Norway, all countries with a right to health care, people live two to three years longer than people in the United States.
