I think that people with disabilities are monetarily disadvantaged as a direct result of market forces, and the USA’s healthcare system. The USA does not offer universal healthcare. This is a problem if you do not have some form of protected health care, especially if you live in a red state. We have republican individuals like Oliver Anthony saying things like “Cause your dollar ain’t shit, and it’s taxed to no end” and “Well if you’re five foot three and you’re three hundred pounds. Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds.” I look to dispute these claims and prove that if you are disabled, no matter your disability, taxes ought to pay for your treatment.
Before addressing any talking points it is imperative to establish how I am defining market forces and their distinct effect on the USA’s privatized healthcare system. Market forces are defined by Brittanica as “the actions of buyers and sellers that cause the prices of goods and services to change without being controlled by the government: the economic forces of supply and demand”. This is important when engaging in discussion about the United States healthcare system. In the USA our healthcare system is a stark contrast to many of our allies. The USA, unlike countries like Canada and Sweden, fails to provide reliable government-based healthcare to all their residents.
This becomes an issue when you start to question human rights. This is something we in the USA love to do whether it be someone’s right to freedom or bodily autonomy. In this aspect, people put into question someone’s basic right to live, which is an inalienable right granted in the Constitution. Many will fight universal healthcare claiming a plethora of different things. Some say it would be too expensive to implement, and others say that the people who would benefit from these implementations are or would become lazy.
The problem with the first opposition is that overall, the USA spends more money on their healthcare per person than any other similar country. This exposes a fatal flaw in the USA’s privatized healthcare system. We are paying more than people in other high-income countries, with universal healthcare, for higher out-of-pocket and typically worse coverage. Why should we pay the same, if not more quite honestly, to private insurance companies who have their own interests to protect.
Your life should not be put in the hands of a business. This is because a business’s entire goal is to make money, not to save your life. Even if a business’s function is to save your life, the bottom line is more important to them. This often leads to people with disabilities finding themselves stuck between paying thousands out of pocket or living a significantly more unpleasurable life.
Disabled people have been, and to an extent still are, victims of privatized healthcare more than able-bodied and able-minded people. The government has recognized that to an extent. We’ve seen substantial growth in healthcare representation for people with disabilities. According to the ASPE “An estimated 532,000 uninsured adults with disabilities (about 67%) now have access to a zero-premium plan after premium tax credits on Healthcare.gov, an increase of 16.8 percentage points from pre-ARP estimates.”. They cite the ARP as something helpful for disabled Americans, and I agree to an extent.
Another argument that people advocating for universal healthcare face is posed by the book “Transforming Healthcare”. Jennifer Hefner writes that “Healthcare organizations are businesses, and regardless of their ownership status, they need to generate profit to sustain their operations to acquire essential and strategic resources, and to achieve their mission by contributing to their communities”. While it is true that healthcare organizations are businesses, I contend that they should not be that way. When hospitals are looking to turn a profit, that significantly affects the treatment a patient will receive. It will also heavily influence the bill a patient gets after their visit.
Furthermore, people with disabilities record many more emergency visits. Emergency visits to the hospital are not always covered by insurance. On top of that the hospital you happen to go to could administer things to you that aren’t covered by your insurance. Another common instance is that people with disabilities will have an extremely high out-of-pocket cost on their insurance. This can be because they make too much, or their parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid.
In Wyoming, Texas, Kansas, Wisconsin, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina they are all refusing the Medicaid expansion which would be very beneficial to their people. This makes it harder for hundreds of millions to secure access to health care. These state governments have hard restrictions on many things, most notably the amount you make.
States like these lower the amount you can make while remaining on Medicaid. This makes it harder for people living today, especially in times of rampant inflation, to remain on or apply for Medicaid. A solution is to remove the “state’s right” to regulate Medicaid. I would argue that this is not a state’s right to have in the first place, and I would argue that states shouldn’t regulate most things. However, that is an argument for a different paper.
In conclusion, I think it would be extremely beneficial for the federal government to have complete control over the healthcare system. It is unsustainable for our country to continue with the current healthcare system it has. We need to collectively understand that people are dying because they do not have healthcare. On top of that, we need more representation of people with disabilities, who do not have good healthcare.
Works Cited:
Hefner, Jennifer L., et al. Transforming Healthcare : A Focus on Consumerism and Profitability. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2020, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2547286.
Creedon, T., Lamont, H., Day, J., Branham, K., Sommers, B., & Marton, W. (2021, July 30). Health insurance coverage among working-age adults with disabilities: 2010-2018. ASPE. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/health-insurance-coverage-among-working-age-adults-disabilities-2010-2018
Ranabhat, C. L., Atkinson, J., Park, M.-B., Kim, C.-B., & Jakovljevic, M. (2018, September 18). The influence of universal health coverage on life expectancy at birth (Leab) and healthy life expectancy (Hale): A multi-country cross-sectional study. Frontiers in pharmacology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6153391/#:~:text=Conclusion%3A%20Universal%20Health%20Coverage%20(UHC,birth%20and%20healthy%20life%20expectancy.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (2023, August 31). The Federal Register. Federal Register :: Request Access. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/08/31/2023-18669/medicaid-program-and-chip-mandatory-medicaid-and-childrens-health-insurance-program-chip-core-set
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (n.d.). State overviews. Medicaid. https://www.medicaid.gov/state-overviews/index.html
Commonwealth Fund. (2023, January 31). U.S. health care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating spending, worsening outcomes. U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022 . https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022#:~:text=All%20countries%20in%20this%20analysis,both%20private%20and%20public%20insurance.
Sprockets and Springes 