Should the United States have universal healthcare?
Asked by: Reginald Smitham | Last update: November 7, 2025Score: 5/5 (10 votes)
Why should the United States have universal healthcare?
UHC allows countries to make the most of their strongest asset: human capital. Supporting health represents a foundational investment in human capital and in economic growth—with good health, children can attend school and eventually reach their full potential, while adults are able to lead productive healthy lives.
What would happen if the US had universal healthcare?
Universal health care, it was estimated, could have saved 212,000 lives in 2020 alone. Today, however, market-based US health care continues to be a global flagship for the neoliberal economic model and its entrenched inequities. The tentacles of economic neoliberalism reach deep into health systems around the world.
Why should healthcare be a universal right?
To offer equal opportunity, all Americans need comparable or fair access to health care and education. Children without viable opportunities for both are disadvantaged from birth. Inequality inherently leads to opportunities lost, poverty, and often compromises on moral principles to access basic necessities.
Why did universal healthcare fail in the US?
Opposition from doctors, labor, insurance companies, and business contributed to the failure of Progressives to achieve compulsory national health insurance. In addition, the inclusion of the funeral benefit was a tactical error since it threatened the gigantic structure of the commercial life insurance industry.
Would Universal Healthcare Really Work in the U.S.?
Why is the U.S. healthcare system flawed?
Of course, there is more at work than just healthcare services in dragging down U.S. healthcare performance. Poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, gun violence, and socioeconomic inequality in the United States all make it harder for the U.S. healthcare system to compete with other high-income countries.
Which country has the best healthcare?
- Australia (74.11)
- Canada (71.32)
- Sweden (70.73)
- Ireland (67.99)
- Netherlands (65.38)
- Germany (64.66)
- Norway (64.63)
- Israel (61.73)
What are the cons of universal healthcare?
Con: limited budgets
Universal health care that's funded or heavily subsidised by the state may not offer treatments or medicines deemed not effective or proven enough to justify the expense. This practice, known as "care rationing", can even be expanded to frontline treatment.
Why are universal rights important?
They are universal because everyone is born with and possesses the same rights, regardless of where they live, their gender or race, or their religious, cultural or ethnic background. Inalienable because people's rights can never be taken away.
Would universal healthcare be cheaper?
Taking into account both the costs of coverage expansion as well as savings that would be achieved through the MAA, we calculate that a single-payer, universal healthcare system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national healthcare expenditure, equivalent to over $450 billion annually.
Would universal healthcare save lives?
Universal single-payer healthcare is fundamental to pandemic preparedness. We determined that such a system could have saved 211,897 lives in 2020 alone. Strikingly, it would have done so at lower cost than the current healthcare system, saving the US $459 billion in 2020 at a time of economic tumult.
Is universal healthcare good for the economy?
Better labor market matches between workers and employers
Making health insurance universal and delinked from employment widens the range of economic options for workers and leads to better matches between workers' skills and interests and their jobs.
What are the advantages of the US healthcare system?
The US healthcare system, despite its challenges, offers several advantages such as providing high-quality care, leading in biomedical research, and ensuring short waiting times for non-emergency surgeries for privately insured patients.
Why is universal healthcare better than private healthcare?
Private health insurance may offer comprehensive coverage and faster access to care. However, it often comes with higher costs. On the other hand, public health insurance provides universal access and cost-effectiveness but may have limitations on choice and longer waiting times.
How unhealthy is America compared to other countries?
The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions, the highest maternal and infant mortality, and among the highest suicide rates. The U.S. has the highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions and an obesity rate nearly twice the OECD average.
Why is healthcare so expensive in the US?
There are many possible reasons for that increase in healthcare prices: The introduction of new, innovative healthcare technology can lead to better, more expensive procedures and products. The complexity of the U.S. healthcare system can lead to administrative waste in the insurance and provider payment systems.
What universal rights should humans have?
Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.
Why are universal values important in society?
Universal values are a set of core principles or beliefs that are shared by people across different cultures, societies, and historical periods. These values often serve as the foundation for moral and ethical judgments, helping individuals differentiate between right and wrong, good and bad.
Why is it important to have all the rights?
The Bill of Rights allows us to believe in what we want, to say who we want to be, to care and be there for who we love, but most of all, be ourselves. The Bill of Rights is a really important thing and no one should ever take it for granted.
Why do we need universal health care?
It enables universal, integrated access to health services as close as possible to people's everyday environments. It also helps deliver the full range of quality services and products that people need for health and well-being, thereby improving coverage and financial protection.
Are people happier with universal healthcare?
The simple fact is that the happiest countries, as well as the healthiest ones, tend to be those with some form of universal health insurance covering all citizens.
Why are Americans against universal healthcare?
Beyond individual and federal costs, other common arguments against universal healthcare include the potential for general system inefficiency, including lengthy wait-times for patients and a hampering of medical entrepreneurship and innovation [3,12,15,16].
What state is #1 in healthcare?
Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Iowa, and Connecticut are the top-ranked states according to the 2020 Scorecard, which assesses all 50 states and the District of Columbia on more than 45 measures of access to health care, quality of care, service use and costs of care, health outcomes, and income-based health care ...
Why does the US rank so low in healthcare?
Access to care was the US' weakest area, with the country placing last due to issues like high out-of-pocket costs and its 26 million uninsured individuals. In contrast, countries like the Netherlands and Germany excelled due to universal coverage and affordable care.
How many deaths due to lack of healthcare worldwide?
Our study found that nearly 8 million people die every year because of a lack of access to high-quality care.