Running Head: HEALTH CARE ETHICS

Health Care Ethics in America

Ryan Hill

William Woods University

Abstract

This topic is about how Health Care in America is an issue for a lot of people and is not very ethical in several ways. Basically, the system is pretty much broken and a lot of people get screwed over as far as the money goes with healthcare. When people get very sick have or have bad diseases, a lot of money comes out of pocket because insurance companies will only pay a certain amount of the money. Overall, the doctors get the most amount of the money in their paychecks and that does not seem right at all. Therefore, in today’s economy, healthcare is not very ethical at all.

Keywords: Health, care, money, insurance, people, sick, diseases

Introduction

Healthcare affects a lot of people in America. According to Carnevale, Smith, Gulish and Beach (2012), healthcare is eighteen percent of the U.S. economy, which is twice as high as in other countries. This proves that healthcare is high in America and several people have to deal with it. Many people pay the price of having to pay loads of money that they might not even have just for a cure or to stay healthy. It also might even be a case where a person is just trying to stay alive.

According to Allen (2012), Americans spend more money per patient than any other country, but are less healthy by far. That shows that the healthcare system is clearly broken and unethical as well. It also is a sign that not enough money is spent on research for scientists to find cures for a lot of diseases that are not currently curable. In Allen (2012), the other advanced countries have better healthcare systems than America basically because there is not as much money being spent and it is lower costs. One of the countries that are better is Canada because Canadian Medicare covers everybody in that country with tax dollars. This shows that the United States has a lot of room for improvement with healthcare.

Now, since people may not be able to pay up all the way, it still wouldn’t be right to just let people die. That would not be ethical at all and it would make healthcare look worse than it already is. The economy should come to a consensus on how to come up with money in a fair way. This may be done whether it is might by more taxes or taking money out of public funding. Helping people stay alive should the number one priority more than money. In some cases though, money is the priority which is why healthcare can be unethical.

Although healthcare is extremely important and does benefit people in society, there should never be a price on a human life. The reason is that it is just not morally right at all. People’s lives are precious and everybody has only one life to live. Therefore, it should be treated with care and not with a price tag. Expenses should not determine whether or not a human should live or not. The focus, at first, should be to help people get healthy and survive and then worry about the money after that. That is the right thing to do and it is ethical. It does not seem like that with healthcare in today’s society because it so broken. There needs to be change to healthcare and more people in our country will be healthy.

Next, due to how the economy is and how the healthcare is as well, it would not be possible to have a “Good Society” where people’s lives were inviolable and had infinite value. Also, society is just not ready for that yet. This society has to be willing to have inviolable lives and there a lot of selfish people out there and corporations as well that is not truthful and therefore would prevent society from ever being a “good society”. America, if it ever will reach it, is a long way from a “Good Society”.

Healthcare revolves in today’s society revolves around helping people to get healthy as well as a lot of money being involved too. Money is a big issue in this economy, especially with healthcare. The way that this society is headed right now, capitalism could eventually be incompatible with religious views of basically putting other people before themselves. A big part in that is that people in this economy pursue things for themselves and are not pursuing things that help other people. There is not enough of that with healthcare and there are many people that

get screwed over on it. Now, healthcare is being worked on but there is just not enough benefits going on right now.

Method

According to Allen (2012), Obamacare is the latest attempt to try and fix what is going with the broken healthcare in this society. The goal of this act is for every American to have insurance coverage. Obamacare requires everybody in America to have insurance. Also, it requires insurance companies to sell insurance to anybody who wants, regardless of already existing conditions. Allen (2012) reports that Obamacare offers subsidies to the needy to help them to afford for their insurance. Lastly, Allen states that Obamacare set up marketplaces where the people can shop for insurance and compare plans and prices. All of this is done to try and fix healthcare in America.

Results

The Supporters of Obamacare feel that it is extremely helpful and a huge accomplishment, according to Allen. There is tens of millions of Americans who are now insured due to this law and are getting help. On the other hand, Allen (2012) states that critics of Obamacare have the feeling that it is too complicated and does not settle the conflict between doctors, insurers, and patients.Overall, this act has a lot of controversy and healthcare is still difficult in this society.

Discussion

Overall, this shows that healthcare is very bad right now. There are some benefits coming but it is doing little to help. The reason is that healthcare is broken and not right for a lot of people in America. Lots of money is lost with healthcare and it is almost unethical when people are trying to just get better or essentially stay alive.

Conclusion

Finally, there is a lot to be done with healthcare. It will not be fixed anytime soon but the process needs to start now and build over the years. This is the only way that improvement will come about with it. As far as healthcare goes, America is far behind with the other advanced countries and has a lot of catching up to do. Allen (2012), states that other countries are far ahead of America. Millions of people need medical help and having to worry about the expenses should not be an issue. Once that comes out in today’s society, much more positive than negative will occur for America and the people.

References

Carnevale, Anthony P., Smith, Nicole, Gulish, Artem, Beach, Bennett (2012). Healthcare. Executive Summary. Numerical/Quantitative Data; Reports – Evaluative, 20.

Allen, Frederick (2012). Fixing Our Healthcare System.Saturday Evening Post, 284, 44-72.