At one point or another, in your life, you will encounter the issue of Health Care and you will have to choose a side on the issue. In fact, the next US presidential elections are going to be riddled with the issues of Health Care as a main topic. To understand what we are talking about, let's first define Health Care. According to HIPAA, Health care is “Care, services, or supplies furnished to an individual and related to the health of the individual.” Currently in the US, the market for the distribution of Health Care is broken with over 47 million people uninsured, increasing health care costs, increasing burdens on employers and worse health conditions.
So then the question that should be on our minds is, is there a moral obligation for society to provide adequate access to health care for all its citizens? In this paper, I will try to present many of the theories and philosophical arguments for and against a universal health care plan and then try to rationally assess each of them to come to the conclusion that, based on moral and ethical principles, we do have a moral responsibility to provide adequate access to Health Care for all citizens in our great nation.
There are many theories out there that argue for and against Health Care's reform. Out of all of these theories, one thing is clear - Health Care is an important and concerning topic, hence the reasons for their theories. But to get a clearer picture of the issues at hand, we must look at how the US Health Care system stands up to other western nations. Currently, the US is the only industrialized westerns nation without Universal Health Insurance and we have over 47 million people uninsured, 9 million children without Health Care and 18,000 deaths because they are not insured. Not just the uninsured, but health care costs have also increased dramatically, a whooping 2 trillion dollars or 13.6% of our GDP is being spent on health care, and the costs are still increasing.
We are among the highest in the world (23rd) for infant mortality rates, even though we spend so much on Health Care and highest infant morality rates among western nations. We are ranked only 20th in women's life expectancy, and 21st for men's life expectancy. We are also ranked 67th of the availability of immunizations. Yet we remain the biggest spender on Health Care, while countries like Canada spends considerably less money on Universal Health Care and gets better results. So as you can see, something is clearly wrong here. Simply put, our health care system is broken, so we come back to our original question - is there a moral obligation for society to provide adequate access to health care for all its citizens?
Health care is a good of special importance. It is a commodity. It is a primary good because it is fundamental to the well-being of individuals, but more importantly, it broadens opportunity, enabling individuals to be productive members of society. Even the President's Commission agrees that Health Care is a social product and that its need is unevenly distributed. It is a social product because everyone in society, in some way or form, contributes towards the cost and care aspect of Health Care. Since its need is unevenly distributed and highly unpredictable, the costs should be shared by all. The Commission goes on to say that Health care needs are largely undeserved and thus reflects current administration's view on Health Care.
Health care is a need of great importance but it seems the cost and the implementation issues seem to be of concern to the Commission. Thus no real action is being taken to broaden the access of Health Care to all citizens because of a few “concerns” such as cost or the coverage of the program etc. But such costs can be distributed equally, just like we can distribute the benefits. However, if we look at the Moderate Principalism, it is not so unified in its opinion as the President's Commission.
Moderate principalism tries to stay away from the notion that uses a “philosophical theory as the ultimate locus of moral certitude.” Thus we use our intuition and certain principles to judge if we are obligated to provide Health Care. According to the Beneficence factor of Moderate Principalism, we must care for the patients or the people in general and thus Beneficence says that the general welfare will be increased by giving everyone health care, the very reason for this country's establishment as stated in the Preamble of the Constitution. But when we look at nonmaleficence or “do not harm” factor in Moderate Principalism, it takes a new approach on the issue.
