All Americans are entitled to health insurance whether they can pay for it or not, however we do not have a universal medical system in America. When faced with a medical emergency, a lot of Americans personal savings are wiped out because they are unable to afford health insurance. Many do not even get health insurance because they are unable to afford it. In this paper I will show anybody in America can get insurance. However, I will also show the amazing amount of Americans who go without it. I will prove each of the points with facts.

First, let me start out by saying all Americans are entitled to health insurance in America. The option of obtaining health insurance is an unalienable right. There are no guide-lines. Nobody is excluded when it comes to providing your family with the health care they need. Racism is not a factor when obtaining health insurance because it does not does matter whether you’re black, white, or Mexican. It does not matter whether you’re old or young. It does not matter whether you’re a man or a woman. This shows the option of enrolling in a health insurance program is equal to all.

There are numerous health insurance companies that offer coverage for a lot of different medical problems. There is a wide variety of types and coverage’s. You have the choice of enrolling in a family plan or just for yourself individually. The plan types range from a PPO, in which a referral is not needed, to an HMO where a referral is needed, and anything in between, such as a POS. The opportunities for health care range from government assistance to employer provided. Individuals can also purchase health plans by their own means as well. Insurance companies are unable to deny benefits regardless of your income level.

The emergency rooms in America are unable to turn away anybody from the medical care they need. Within the emergency room, practitioners and medical staff have to uphold an ethical code or a code of ethical value called the Hippocratic Oath. They have to do this because it is considered immoral for any person to be denied emergency care based on any medical condition, insurance coverage, or lack there of. Patients have the right to receive the best possible care with the intentions that all treatment derives from the objective knowledge of the medical staff and not subjective opinions. We also have free clinics in America which is a facility where lower income families or persons can go to receive health care at no cost. Obviously, you are limited to the amount of medical care you can receive at these clinics, and to say that these are state of art facilities would be a joke.

With that being said, in the year 2000, about thirty nine million Americans had no health insurance, which is about 14.3 percent of us. That is completely absurd and is not only irritating to think about, but also very sad. Many of the people going with no health insurance have jobs. Most even have full time jobs. After they pay their bills and buy groceries for their family, they have no money left over for health insurance. Depending on their job status, families go weeks, or even months with no coverage. Personally, I think this is one of the biggest problems in America today, something needs to be done, and something needs to be done fast.

Basically unless you sit at home doing nothing to better your life, government assistance will not help you. If you happen to find a job making any amount of money the government basically stops giving you any help at all. This stops a lot of Americans from even considering working. It is crazy that a job stops you from being able to receive government assistance for medical insurance. From my understanding when government programs were established, for instance welfare, Franklin D. Roosevelt did not have the intentions of his program to be used as a means to live on. Instead “The New Deal” was created in order to assist individuals with obtaining life’s essentials, food, and health care, while the individual is out helping themselves. What I mean by this is it is a stepping stone to get your life moving in the right direction not a way of life. Health care provided by government agencies needs to remove universal guide lines for all persons inquiring for help, however guidelines are placed and universalism is not in effect.

Many others cannot get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. A pre-existing condition is any type of medical condition that you had prior to trying to receive health benefits. In addition, insurers will not cover people who are at high risk. For example, some companies will not cover people who have a known family history of cancer. Few companies are willing to insure people at high risk of developing the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Even people who can afford the ever-increasing prices can’t always get it. In most states, health insurance companies can turn down applicants who suffer from even the most common medical problems, like allergies and acne.The best way to describe that is crazy. How in the world can you not give someone health insurance because they are likely to become sick? Isn’t that why people need insurance? In the future, insurers might even try using genetic testing to exclude people with higher than average risks.

One of the reasons health insurance is so expensive and the reason they refuse to cover so many people is because they are offering health insurance to make themselves a profit. When insurance companies are not driven by the bottom line, such as a non-profit organization then the American people may truly for once be in “good hands.” Insurers typically keep around twenty to thirty percent of the premiums they collect to cover administration and marketing costs, plus profit. In 2007, one of the biggest private health insurance companies collectively earned more than eleven billion dollars in profits. Can you imagine how many more Americans would have health insurance if the eleven billion dollars did not go in the pockets of the share holders of the insurance company? Keep in mind that eleven billion just went to the share holders of one company. Eleven billion dollars could have paid for countless doctors, nurses, medical equipment, or even built dozens of hospitals. Honestly, I think it is amazing the amount of money we raise for children in other countries, while there is a lot of work to be done at home.

The cost for health insurance is also completely outrageous. For example, in 1980, Americans spent two hundred forty eight billion dollars on health care. By 1999, that number had more than quadrupled to 1.2 trillion. The cost for health insurance needs to be dramatically reduced. The minimum cost for a one-day stay in the hospital can cost more than two thousand dollars. As a result of the high cost of health insurance and medical care, many American families without health insurance are one bad accident or serious illness away from financial ruin. This fact leaves many Americans making hard decisions between seeing a doctor when they’re sick or holding on to their hard earned money. As a result, many Americans choose not to go to a doctor unless they feel their illness is life threatening.

Many Americans view access to health insurance as essential for the healthy and secure development of children in their formative years. In 2007, there were 9.4 million children without health insurance. One out of three children goes without health insurance for four or more months in a three year period. People without insurance sometimes put their own health on the back burner for financial reasons, but when it comes to their children they do not take any chances, whether it leads to financial ruin or not. The same mother that used duck tape to stop her own arm from bleeding will insist on every medical test available for her sniffling child. In my opinion, a child with no health insurance should be considered educational neglect. Suppose a child has Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D), without the proper medicine that child needs, he or she is not able to learn the same as the other children in the class. Suppose a child is in need of eye glasses. Again without insurance a mother or father may have to choose running water over the eye glasses for their child. Politicians say “no child should be left behind.” Personally I have had it with these slogans. We as a country want things, but we do not want to support what it takes to make things happen. This is a very disheartening situation.

People have medical bills that are higher than the cost of their house. Among currently or recently uninsured working families with severe medical problems, two thirds of them report borrowing money from their family or friends. A quarter gets a loan or mortgage in order to pay health care expenses. Some people are forced to declare bankruptcy and put their future credit rating in jeopardy, which stops them from being able to buy a car or house in their name for a long time. Medical bills are a factor in more than half of all personal bankruptcy filings in America. It is one thing to have a two hundred fifty thousand dollar voluntary mortgage for a house you wanted, but imagine the same payment plan for a bad back that did not come with three bedrooms and an extra half bath. A person with multiple sclerosis would average about thirty thousand dollars in medical bills per month. That is the equivalent of buying a new car every month. That is completely insane. I do not think even the wealthiest of people buy a new car every month, and if they did they would not stay wealthy very long. No one wants to be sick and no one asks to be sick. Sickness does not discriminate, yet health insurance discriminates against people with pre-existing conditions.

In 2007, employed health care premiums increased by 6.1 percent, which is two times the rate inflation. The annual premiums for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly twelve thousand one hundred dollars. Wow, that is more than twenty five percent of the middle class American’s income. The average premiums for single coverage averaged four thousand four hundred dollars. Even experts agree that our health care system is full of inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, waste and fraud. These problems significantly increase the cost of medical care and health insurance for employers and workers. All these things affect the financial security and well being of a lot of families in America.

Even Americans who are able to afford health insurance sometimes do not get the help they need in many cases. Waiting two or three hours in the waiting room at a doctor’s office has become the norm. Overall service used to include house calls. House calls are the term used when doctors actually came to the patient’s home and provided medical services. The doctor knew your name, your parent’s names, your brothers and sister’s names, and all your medical histories because he was likely the doctor that delivered you. In today’s medical world you’re lucky to ever see the same doctor twice and you’re equally lucky if they speak the same language. I can not count the number of times doctors have done everything but push me out of their office. Americans have so many unanswered questions about their health simply because some doctors don’t have the time or the patience to give them the answers. Americans are basically paying two hundred dollars for five or ten minutes of their doctor’s time. Being a doctor or a nurse is a very compassionate job, so if you’re going to be one, then you need to be compassionate. When people go to a doctor or to the hospital they want to feel like the doctor or nurse actually cares about their health and well being. More often than not, patients leave the office feeling that the doctor and staff were more interested in collecting the co-pay than the actual reason for their visit. There is also the aggravation of referrals delaying your prognosis by weeks or sometimes a month or two. Americans are paying a lot of money for health insurance and the bottom line is we deserve good or even great care.

Sadly, the amount of mistreated elderly people in America is very high. According to congressional finding, about five million elderly persons are abused or neglected with most instances going unreported. Most of the abuse goes unreported due to the victim’s fear or a relative’s failure to recognize abuse symptoms. In nursing homes, many abuse violations are reported only after a formal complaint is filed or during an annual inspection. More than a third of nursing homes in the United States were cited for elderly abuse violations during a two year period ending in 2004. Often, the abuse violations caused actual harm to the residents or placed them in immediate threat of death or serious injury. These are sad statistics, unworthy of a society that claims to honor its elders. I have had personal experience with this. My grandfather was in a rehabilitation center. I would go visit him five days a week and about four of those five days he would be laying in his own feces and urine. He was supposed to get physical therapy four days a week. The therapist was only able to work with him one or two of those four days. They said they were unable to due to the lack of staff they had. He eventually ended with pneumonia because he did nothing but lay in the bed. If they spent more time with him in physical therapy, this more than likely would not have happened.

The emergency room is for a life threatening problem such as a loss of a limb, heart attack, stroke, trauma with uncontrolled bleeding, compound fracture, and chest pain. Urgent care is for injuries that can not wait for a regular appointment with your doctor. Going to the emergency room when you do not have an emergency is definitely frowned on in America. I can completely understand this if you have health insurance and you’re just causing the wait to be even longer for the people with life threatening illnesses. However, a doctor or an urgent care center is going to want the money at the time of the visit and if you have no insurance and no money to pay to go to an urgent care center or doctors office, what choice are you left with? Not to mention, the growing number of uninsured affects the health care all American receive. As more and more of these uninsured return to the emergency rooms for medical care, emergency care for the insured and uninsured alike suffer. I’m sorry but if my child is in need of medical attention of any kind and I am unable to pay a doctor, I am going to the emergency room where they can not deny me medical attention. One way to stop the overflow of people without emergencies going to the emergency room is to stop the actual emergency in America of people with no health insurance and not enough money to pay for medical attention. Stop complaining about the problem and fix the problem. It is not going to go away; it will more than likely continue to get worse until the problem of uninsured American people is fixed.