Cancer Treatment and Universal Healthcare

Cancer Treatment and Universal Healthcare

The United States has a free market healthcare system that some people would like to change to a universal healthcare system. Most other industrialized nations use a universal healthcare system and there are similar debates in those countries about switching to ours. Both have advantages and disadvantages but when it comes to cancer treatment, our healthcare system has a higher survival rate than any other. We have a middle of the road ranking for the amount of people who get cancer here, and some people would like to argue that cancer occurrence can be linked to healthcare. Getting cancer can be caused by lifestyle, working environment or just bad luck, but treating cancer has everything to do with the quality of the healthcare system.

In our free market system, new technology is developed along with new treatments at great expense to the researchers. In most cases this is done with the understanding that the new treatments will be very expensive to help return the cost of development and fund new research. As time goes on, this technology becomes more common and the price drops to an adjusted rate to fit the market. Without this cycle, new healthcare advances wouldn't come about and we wouldn't move forward with extensive new ways of treating patients. For a time after they are introduced, not everyone can afford these new methods; which is why some people believe our system to be unfair.

In a universal healthcare system, new technology and treatments are rarely developed. There is very little return on investment because the fees that doctors charge and what they can do to treat you is all regulated by the government that is paying for it. Expensive advances aren't cost effective, so until they become affordable and common they aren't offered to anyone. The system is fair for everyone because everyone gets low quality healthcare evenly. As a person ages they become more expensive to treat, until eventually the government has to decide if an expensive cancer treatment is worth a few extra years for an old patient.

Aggressive diseases like cancer, HIV and many others will always be better treated by a free market healthcare system. Treatments are expensive and aren't guaranteed, so government run healthcare plans will only pay the bare minimum. People who have universal healthcare go to the doctor twice as often, because it's free; so they learn earlier that they have cancer, but can't do anything about it. Many people from around the world come to the United States for treatment of these diseases if they can afford it. Without developing new technologies, they would never become common for everyone to have access to them.

With universal healthcare everyone gets the same kind of coverage, but with our system we need to have a health insurance policy. Not everyone can afford to purchase a regular insurance policy if they don't get it from their employer, but there are alternatives to traditional insurance. Discount fee for service plans like Ameriplan, and catastrophic plans are all viable ways to get to a doctor. Without insurance or something like it, one big expense can bankrupt almost anyone; so getting a plan before a tragedy happens is a must. The debate between the two systems will continue for a long time, but the need for quality healthcare will remain the same.

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