universal healthcare

healthcare shouldn't only be for the wealthy, no one should ever have to choose between their health and their house, you shouldn't have to go broke to pay for your healthcare and no one should ever die just because they cant afford it. yet 45,000 American deaths per year could be prevented if these people were covered. we have a right to live so why does the U.S. seem like a cemetery for the poor? universal healthcare would save American lives where as insurance companies threaten to kill friends and loved ones. some peoples pets even receive better healthcare that 46 million Americans do. there is something wrong with that picture and because of this, America is 37th in healthcare for its citizens. we need to understand that healthcare is a moral issue, not just economic and it should be a human right. universal healthcare is just the decent thing to do and it would be a victory for the sanctity of life. so it baffles my mind that some people who oppose universal healthcare call themselves pro life Christians. pro life = universal health care because the right to life doesn't just end after you're out of the womb. who would Jesus want us to deny health coverage to? wouldn't he want us all to be equally covered or would he want some to be more covered than others? what many opponents of universal healthcare don't understand is that it would actually benefit them, as well as the rest of us. just think, no more being tied to a dead end job for the benefits, no more discrimination against people including children with pre-existing conditions, no more dropped coverage on patients in the middle of their treatments and no more discrimination based on salary. it would help improve our economy because more people would receive preventative care. this would help detect illness before its too late and in turn, it would save lives and tax dollars as opposed to the system we have now where we let things go until the last moment when the illness worsens and tax dollars are used to pay for even more expensive treatments. people complain that universal healthcare would actually cost more money in taxes but people already give a huge chunk of their paycheck away for insurance and many of their plans don't even meet their needs. the truth is that the U.S. actually spends more tax dollars on healthcare per person than any other country, yet has a lower life expectancy than most industrialized nations. in fact we are the only industrialized country without universal health care, even though we are the richest country in the world and should be more able to afford it than other countries who actually do have it. universal healthcare is also good for small business because it makes it easier to compete with larger companies who can more easily afford to insure employees. it also helps U.S. companies compete with foreign companies that do not offer their employees liveable wages or health benefits. although opponents of universal healthcare may think that govt run healthcare seems scarey, many of these people will eventually be recipients of medicare, which is govt run healthcare that actually has higher approval ratings than insurance companies have. a CBS news poll reported that 50% of republicans, 87% of democrats and 72% of independents would favor a govt administered health insurance plan like medicare for all Americans. overall 65% of respondents favored it, while only 26% opposed it and 9% had no opinion. also, a New England journal of medicine poll reported that 63% of U.S. doctors supported a public option similar to medicare while only 27% opposed it. another example of government run healthcare is the military healthcare system and if govt administered health care is good enough for our soldiers then its good enough for the rest of Americans. members of congress who oppose universal healthcare also receive govt administered healthcare, so i think that we should get the same coverage that our congressmen have. opponents claim that countries with universal healthcare like Canada have low quality care but the fact is that Canada voted Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian ever because of his implementation of a national health system. more proof that universal healthcare works really well is the fact that Germany has been implementing it since the late 18th century. so although there will always be complaints no matter what system is in place, people love universal healthcare because it makes things better for them by eliminating greed out of the equation. a system that rewards you for denying life saving operations is broken and health insurance companies are not capable of putting people before profits because the less they cover, the more they make. so it is insane to put medical decisions in the hands of those whose job it is to fatten their own profits because denying healthcare is profitable.