What are the different pros and cons of having universal healthcare? Are there more cons than pros?
There are multiple valid pros and cons to each side of Universal Healthcare. Some pros include a lower costs for citizens and health care providers, an overall healthier population, and a standard of care for every legal citizen. There can be a lower cost for both the citizens and the health care providers because there is no competition when it comes to health insurance companies. From universal healthcare, it can produce an overall healthier population because those who cannot pay for medicine or treatment now have access to it. This can also reduce costs for those who can not afford it as well because they usually wait as long as possible until they have to go to the emergency room which results in an extremely high bill. Universal healthcare allows them to catch it ahead of time which saves their health and resources for the hospital. There is the same level of care in healthcare with universal health care because when you take away the profit aspect of healthcare there is no ranking of care based on financial standings. Although these pros sound amazing, you have to consider the cons as well. Having universal healthcare could limit access to care that potentially could save someone’s life from the possibility that it could fail would result in the associated cost. Since everyone has access to it, there are longer wait times for more specialized procedures since the focus was on the essential health care services for the majority population. The cost the government has to provide is substantial. There are many counties already in dept and applying universal healthcare could have some negative effects on other governmental programs. It is hard to measure whether there are more pros and cons of universal healthcare as it depends on your personal opinion of what is worth it.