Why Don’t We Have Universal Healthcare in the U.S.?
By: Nitzaliah Festinger
Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and nearly all of Europe. These are only a small chunk of the 78 countries that offer universal healthcare. So how come the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave, hasn’t achieved this? In order to understand this, we need to take a closer look at the systems of different countries with different healthcare policies, along with the history of healthcare in America.
America has been trying to find ways to make healthcare more accessible since the early 1900s, when the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 was passed. This act didn’t directly help people pay for their medical services; however, it generated funds for research, preventative care, and education. The act caused infant mortality to decrease by about 5.2 deaths per 1,000 live births overall.
From the 1930s to the early 1960s, national health progressed a lot through the establishment of Social Security, National Health, and the Joint Commission. As well as the continued development of health rights. The Social Security and Hill-Burton acts both contributed to the expansion of research, the building of healthcare establishments, and government funding.
Medicare and Medicaid were first introduced in 1965. When it was first created, Medicare was a government insurance plan. It was free of cost as long as you were able to prove that you paid taxes for at least ten years. The program was used to cover hospital bills and reimburse wages for days they had to spend in recovery. This system has mostly stayed the same. More recently, the requirements to qualify for Medicare have become less strict and also changed to include coverage for prescription medicine as well as accessibility services for disabled people. Medicare is for people aged 65 years and older. On the other hand, Medicaid is a program for younger Americans. This program also helped relieve costs for medical bills, as well as wages. The eligibility for Medicaid is based on a person, or a family’s income.
From the 1970s until today, government contributions to health care have mostly stayed the same. The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 and made insurance more affordable and accessible. AIDS and COVID-19, however, have caused health care costs to increase a lot, making health care costs very unmanageable for the average American family.
As for countries that do provide universal healthcare, it does come with a cost. The top ten countries with the highest tax rates all have universal healthcare. This correlation is definitely not a coincidence. These countries use taxes to fund their healthcare programs. America ranks 15th on the list of highest tax rates as it is, and our taxes would probably increase by about another 20-40% if the government provided universal healthcare (depending on how the funding is distributed), which would put us up in the top three ranking of highest-taxed countries.
All in all, while American health care has a long way to go when it comes to financial accessibility, our history and surrounding countries show us that universal health care may not be a great solution. The president says he plans on looking into more suitable options and voting on a new system by December.
Sources:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2017/how-other-countries-achieve-universal-coverage
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1447691/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10810293/
https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/artifact/hr-12634-bill-encourage-instruction-hygiene-maternity-and-infancy-july-1-1918
https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/36084
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheppard%E2%80%93Towner_Act#:~:text=With%20the%20health%20centers%20that%20were%20constructed%2C,infant%20mortality%20reduction%20was%20not%20statistically%20significant.
https://www.google.com/search?q=top+4+countries+highest+tax+rates&rlz=1CATAVM_enUS1176&oq=top+4+countries+highest+tax+rates&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRirAjIHCAcQIRifBTIHCAgQIRifBTIHCAkQIRiPAtIBCDc3NThqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on
https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets