Critical Thinking Wk5 Debate Paper & Discussion

Should healthcare be mandated?

BCOM/275

December 8, 2011

James Gargas

Should healthcare be mandated?

Is mandatory health insurance unconstitutional? Should healthcare be mandated? Do you know someone who needs medical attention and is not able to afford it? Does your employer offer a wellness program? These questions and many more have been asked over and over again. The debate will be more evident as we go forward over the next year. This issue is very much in the political arena. The pros and cons in the healthcare debate can be very controversial and there is a large amount of information and misinformation out there. Everyone should have the right to have medical treatment and go to a doctor however; the main issue is how much involvement if any the government should have and what role should it play in all of this.

Americans realize health care costs are out of control, we are spending more on health care than we are on food and housing. Johnson (2010) “The United States spent more than 17 percent of its GDP in 2009 on healthcare, higher than any other developed nation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that number will rise to 25% by 2025 without changes to federal law. Employer-funded coverage is the structural mainstay of the U.S. health insurance system. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 71% of private employees in the United States had access to employer-sponsored health plans in 2006. A November 2008 Kaiser Foundation report says access to employer-sponsored health insurance has been on the decline among low-income workers, and health premiums for workers have risen 114% in the last decade. A March 2010 report by Thomson Reuters, a business intelligence service, found that employers' healthcare costs rose 7.3 percent in 2009 compared with 4.8 percent in overall U.S. health spending that year” (para. 2). Even though health care in the United States remains as one of the best in...