Essay on Universal Healthcare in America Argumentative Essay

You are woken by a throbbing pain inside of your stomach. It is not like any stomach ache so you go to the emergency room. There the doctor diagnoses you with appendicitis and performs life saving surgery on you. After recovering from the surgery, you receive the bill. Although the battle of pain is over, the battle of the cost has just begun. Luckily, you are a Canadian citizen, so the government pays the bill entirely because there is universal healthcare in your country. Countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, and Canada both offer a kind of universal healthcare, meaning, the government guarantees everyone has access to healthcare regardless of their ability to pay for it. However, the United States of America does not offer this kind of healthcare. Instead, healthcare is more private in America. Although there are many positives of having a universal healthcare system, universal health care should not exist in America because the system would be disruptive, increase taxes, and cause a lack of innovation, choices, and long queue time.

Having universal healthcare would obviously grant citizen healthcare despite the situation that the citizen may be in. Even the poorest citizen would still have the same high prestige healthcare as the wealthiest citizen in the nation. Likewise, in the United States of America, if you have low income or are above sixty-five year old, the U.S government will provide you with the adequate healthcare you need. However, changing the entire system to universal healthcare would create a huge disruption for most citizens, since they get their healthcare from their job or employer through their salary. This can cause salary changes. If universal healthcare is added into America, many citizens may get their good private insurance substituted by the universal healthcare that is much worse. In these situations, universal healthcare would cause much more havoc than benefits. 

Universal healthcare will still need to be paid. A way to pay for universal healthcare is to increase taxes amongst every citizen. In fact, citizens in countries with universal healthcare like Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan, all pay much higher taxes than the average American citizen. A sudden increase in tax can cause much more repercussions within our already divided nation. Increase in tax can mean changes in the economy, like our stocks, and everyday grocery prices increasing. Increases in tax can also cause people to lose their jobs since big corporations like Amazon would rather have cheaper taxes in China than in America. Although some people may say that Americans spend twice as much for their healthcare than other citizens in countries with universal healthcare, Americans get much higher quality and choices for their medical needs than what universal healthcare offers.

Having universal healthcare is paid by the government, so the government gets to pick and choose which medical attention the citizen needs. Medical companies do not have to compete with one another to create better products like new drugs since they know that they will get paid by the government either way. For example, new cancer drugs are not available to citizens that have universal healthcare but American have these options. Having the best options and choices through competition and innovation is always great when someone is seeking medical attention, something that people with universal healthcare do not have. Universal healthcare also creates long queue time, meaning patients may be waiting weeks perhaps months to get the important medical attention they need like surgery or therapy. During these long queues, the patient may get worse causing even more problems and issues down the road. Having universal healthcare causes more problems than benefits for the United States of America. 

In conclusion, universal healthcare should not exist in America because the system would cause disruption, increase taxes, and cause a lack of innovation, choices, and long queue time. Adding universal healthcare would cause many Americans to lose their benefits that they already get from their private healthcare. Secondly, having universal healthcare also increases taxes for every citizen. Lastly, having universal healthcare halts innovation and competition on breakthrough drugs, surgery, and research and also causes long queues for patients. In short, although universal healthcare may work for other countries, universal healthcare does not work for the United States of America.