A Final Look At Healthcare in America

The debate over healthcare is quite controversial and Americans can’t seem to find a solution that the majority agrees with. Honestly the solution, that I think is the best, is universal healthcare. Money is a huge factor in this debate and as sad as it may seem, I believe it’s the factor that American citizens weigh the most in their decision. On average the government and insurance companies charge an uninsured citizen $1,103 each year. On the flip side, they charge insured Americans $3,809 each year, making the costs of health care three times larger for the insured versus the uninsured (Kang, 2009). Obviously by doing this insured Americans are having more of their hard earned money taken away because of something that is almost entirely out of their hands.

  Of course there is always an opposition to any argument. People not in favor of a universal healthcare system say that nothing is free; Americans would just be paying for this new system through taxes, instead of their insurance premiums (Wilensky, 2009). Statistics do show that industrialized countries that do have a universal healthcare system do have higher income taxes than the US. These statistics were given in 2009 by Marcia Clemmitt portraying the percent of income tax for each country: US 28.3%, Canada 33.3%, Germany 36.2%, England 36.3%, and France 43.6%. By these numbers countries pay a higher income tax as compared to countries without a universal healthcare system, but what these numbers don’t show is the amount of income spent on healthcare, which would be very interesting to see (Clemmitt, 2009).

Please help the passing of universal healthcare in the United States. One thing people can do is contact their local government officials. A few people you can contact in the Madison and Wisconsin area are:

 

Mayor of Madison

Dave Ceislewicz

608-266-4611

210 MLK, Jr. Blvd.

Room 403,

City-County Bldg.

Madison, WI  53703-3342

 Wisconsin Senators 

Russell Feingold

202-224-5323

506 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington DC 20510

Feingold.senate.gov/contact_opinion.html

 

Herb Kohl

202-224-5653

330 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington DC 20510

kohl.senate.gov/contact.cfm