Blog 16

So this year the debate about health care has been a heated topic.
My topic for the the book is on HPV. First I'm going to talk about the articles that are for the health care being a right rather than a privilege.

The first article I read the author used real life examples that anyone could relate to although it was a sob story, it made me think about events that I could relate too because the reality is that accidents happen and there are so many accidents everyday. This quote stood out to me "It was $2,000 for a 40 mile ambulance ride?" I thought that was a ridiculous amount of money to expect from someone.

The second article is Universal health care will save Americans money. The main point to this article is that we as Americans are already paying way too much for health care in fact he used statistics to compare our country with countries in Europe. "Americans spend more than anyone else in the world on health care. Each health insurer adds its bureaucracy, profits, high corporate salaries, advertising, and sales commissions to the actual cost of providing care." Another quote "the United States spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in 2004, while Canada spent 9.9%, France 10.7%, Germany 10.9%, Sweden 9.1%, and the United Kingdom 8.7%." I chose these quotes because the statistics he used helped him make his point and it made me thinking more about the cost of health care and how it could me improved.

The third article is that universal health care will improve the quality of medical care. This author talks about how we can learn from Europe and that by having universal health care doctors will be more inspired to work. I had a little trouble with this article the most. However the author did a jood job using quotes from important people such as a woman from Harvard saying, "In Switzerland, rich or poor, they all buy the same health care insurance."

These articles help me with HPV because it is a infection that can lead women to have cervical cancer however the cost of the vaccine could be a problem to some American citizens to get and this could be a problem if the person is sexually active because they can be at risk.

The next three articles are opposing universal health care

Article one: Health care is not a fundamental Right. He mentions how its not fair for a doctor who went to study to become a doctor for several years and of course a doctor being a high paid job they would be at risk at loosing a lot of money and its not fair to them. After I read this I realized even though health care is expensive its not fair for people to have to pay taxes for someone who is frequently getting sick while that person hardly gets sick. I like this quote. "I need hip-replacement surgery that will cost $25,000 and that I don’t have the money to pay for it. Since I have a right to health care, that means that I have a right to get the money from you to pay for my operation."

Article two: Universal Health care will be too expensive. Jacob the author talks about how it is not a right but a privledge a good quote I found was, "If I need an operation, then you cannot say “no” because that would be denying me my right to health care. Thus, isn’t the right to health care actually a power to force doctors to provide people with medical services?" I liked this because its not fair that a doctor needs to be forced to this operation for someone if they don't have the money. I know it may seem like being greedy but in the real world we all have to pay. and doctors need money too.

Article three: Universal Health care will worsen the quality of medical care. This is the exact opposite of how it will benefit us because the author mentions something that the other article did not. "The average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year in countries like Europe." So this wouldn't benefit us. What's the point of health care being universal anyways if you would have to wait about a year..which could lead you to being more ill or even death.

Overall My view on the health care is that it is a privilege. Even though I do think health care is pricey I believe that it is somewhat fair for the doctors who had to study many years of research and I think if health care becomes a right more people will be more lazy as far as jobs. I also feel like its not fair for citizens to be taxed on someone else's health care while I may be a perfectly healthy person.