The high cost of health insurance cost is a real problem in the United States of America. Before the mid-19th century, the relationship between doctors and patients was simple: the patient paid money in exchange for the doctor’s advice, skill and medicines. In order to win acceptance as professionals and be perceived as something more than commercial businessmen, doctors needed to persuade the public that they were acting out of knowledge rather than self-interest and profit. Organized medicine built a system of formal education, licensing, health insurance, examinations and professional discipline, all meant to assure that doctors’ recommendations were based on medical science and helped needed patients, but it was not meant to be profit seeking. It took the growth of health insurance to create a system in which a doctor really did not need to think about patients’ financial income in weighing their clinical needs, so long as the patient was insured. However, in practice, medicine stayed as a business, and doctors were more like salesman. In present days, not everyone can afford health insurance.

According to professors David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, “Because these individuals cannot pay for it, they do not get needed care, and many die as a consequence. The most credible estimate of the number of people in the United States who have died because of a lack of medical care was provided… They concluded that almost 100,000 people die in the United States each year because of lack of needed care — three times the number of people who died of AIDS.”

Here are three main reasons why the health insurance system should be eliminated: not everyone in the U.S. can afford it, the number of uninsured Americans is growing rapidly and, without a health insurance system, people can save money.

The health insurance system should be eliminated because not everyone in the U.S. can afford to pay for insurance in order to get medical treatment with a discount. Moreover, health insurance does not make quality medical treatment equally available to all of the people. In the past, all people were equal when they had to pay for doctor’s advice or medicine. Now, however, people are forced to buy an insurance plan and pay about $11,000 per year for a family of four and only then do they get the discount for doctor’s skill and prescription for medicine.

Here is what happened to a person who could not buy such a discount: a Florida Hospital in Orlando, Fla., charged an uninsured patient $35,200 for an appendectomy. A typical insurer would have paid the hospital $7,000 for the same procedure. Medicare would have paid $6,200. For the uninsured Florida patient, the bill represented a 403 percent premium over the price an insured patient would have been charged, and 468 percent over Medicare.

It looks like hospitals raise prices for uninsured on purpose, so that uninsured people will hurry to buy insurance as fast as possible. The worst thing is that hospitals claim they do not overcharge uninsured.

In 2004, a hospital association official told the Miami Herald: “They [the uninsured] don’t pay higher rates. It’s that they don’t get discounts. That’s the whole concept of group purchasing. You negotiate a deal. Individuals don’t get the deal. This is not rocket science, and it is not new to economics.”

As noted before, medicine is a business and doctors are salesman. It does not seem like doctors want to help ill people but take an advantage of them and make money by way of overcharging patients. Moreover, medical special interests convinced politicians to shut down free clinics for the poor years ago. Rather than allow them to reopen, socialized medicine advocates claim that the high cost of health care is the fault of people who refuse to buy insurance and who run to an emergency room instead every time they have a problem. The health insurance system makes things even worst for both the insured and uninsured in a way as the insured have to pay thousands of dollars even when they do not require medical treatment and the uninsured do not have any access to a “normal” treatment. The ones who benefit from the insurance system are doctors and clinics because in 2002 Health Care Authority overcharged uninsured Americans by $2.1 billion, which is horrifying. Health insurance has nothing to do with taking care of people’s health; it is a money-making strategy for medical structure. If there was no health insurance, people would receive equal medical treatment and charge for medical service.

The health insurance system should be eliminated because it becomes more expensive and unaffordable day by day. According to Robert J. Mills and Snaiesh Bhandari, “The share of the population without health insurance rose in 2002, the second consecutive annual increase. An estimated 15.2 percent of the population or 43.6 million people were without health insurance coverage during the entire year in 2002, up from 14.6 percent in 2001, an increase of 2.4 million people.”

Even hardworking people cannot afford it because of its cost. Uninsured people risk losing their savings and assets when they suddenly become ill and undergo major surgery or face long term hospital care. Those fears can lead to depression. People with low income and even the middle class might face the dilemma of choosing between health care and their children’s future education or retirement savings.

Middle class families, which are a cornerstone of the American economy, become vulnerable facing new challenges to have access to one of the best health care systems in the world. Poor and retired people who are eligible for Medicare or Medicaid have access to a limited number of healthcare facilities and doctors who provide low-quality healthcare. Even those people have sort of free healthcare: the money come from middle class tax payers and insured patients. It looks like health care can afford lower and upper classes skipping middle class. The Lower Class is eligible for many of the government’s assisting healthcare programs and the upper class have no problem paying for health insurance. Government spending on security and military programs has increased dramatically but spending on healthcare of their own citizens has not changed. Safety and Global security are very important, but in the 21st century people from middle class should and must have full access to advanced medical care. Therefore, statistics are against that statement and more and more uninsured middle class families in the U.S. Healthcare insurance should be eliminated because it is leaving hard-working citizens who are building America day after day without affordable health care.

The health insurance system should be eliminated in order to give American citizens their right to save more money. Carla Howell said, “Individuals and families that invest the money they would otherwise spend on medical insurance can build a nest egg worth over $100,000 in just five years. In 10 years it could grow to over $250,000 –- enough to cover a major health care catastrophe. If they continue to enjoy good health, they can retire as millionaires.”

The health insurance system works out only for the medical structure which increases prices on medical care. People spend tons of money on health insurance instead of other more important necessities such as their children’s education. Most parents in the United States start saving for their child’s education from the time the child is born but what should non-American parents do? For example, if somebody moved to the U.S. from France or Italy  he is required to get health insurance for his family in order to make sure that if something happens, he at least has a chance to pay for his or his family member’s recovery but what happens to the children’s education? Also, retirement suffers from it. If an American citizen who earns an average salary has health insurance that he might not even use, he will not have enough money for retirement and will not be able to enjoy it after working for so many years. Other countries such as Canada and Russia do not require health insurance, and people are satisfied.

According to the National Coalition on Health Care, “The average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increased more than 143 percent since 2000. Average out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for medications and co-insurance for physician and hospital visits rose 115 percent during the same period.”

American citizens do not need ascending prices for health care but affordable access to it. Instead of lowering prices for medical care and giving the ability to citizens to save more money, the authority behind the health insurance system multiplies it. Then, there are such statements in news papers like this one, “The number of uninsured or underinsured people in the United States is estimated to be about 46 million… they sit on the edge of catastrophe.”

It is not people’s fault that they cannot afford it but an imitation of catastrophe exposed by the health insurance system. People could save money and put them into assets instead of overpaying for health insurance.

Health insurance has created many problems since it was brought into the society. Many people have to make a decision between death and huge debt when they get injured. Average Americans, new citizens or permanent residents have to think twice in case of an injury about whether they want to save their lives or get into an insane debt due to the lack of money to pay for the insurance. Health insurance policy may be charged with violation of Constitution and human rights. In the Constitution it says that all men are created equal. By creating health insurance, the government says that not all men are equal since not all can afford to receive equal medical care. The people who worked all their lives cannot afford to enjoy retirement because they wasted too many thousands of dollars on health insurance that they might have not even used. The government should closely examine the effects of health insurance on the nation in order to follow one of the major rules written in Constitution and allow people to afford fulfillment of their basic need – medical care.

By: Vadym Guliuk

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