Health Care as a Right - Essay Example

"Health Care as a Right" is a gorgeous example of a paper on the health system.

            Healthcare is a right and despite its perpetual absence in the foundational documents of the United States, it should be upheld as an unalienable right alongside others that are openly accepted as such. Health is crucial for the enjoyment of other rights such as the right to life and sidelining it threatens the very foundations of such rights. Making health care a privilege contravenes the spirit of the Declaration of Independence that treats all people equally. This is because different people have varying levels of affordability and the government needs to intervene in to ensure equal access to healthcare for all (Fox et al 1169).

            Constructive competition in healthcare leads to continued improvements in the methods and processes that lower the cost of healthcare. Improvement in the quality of healthcare products and services owes to sound competition in the healthcare sector. This competition brings about innovations that improve the approaches to healthcare provision. However, the competition in the United States’ healthcare has had significant challenges evident in the rising costs and inequality in access. The challenges that draw from unhealthy competition underscore the need for government regulation. The government of the United States has regulated healthcare provision in various ways (Fiscella 1139).

            The department of Health and Human Services helps the government to regulate healthcare. One of how the U.S government has regulated healthcare is in requiring physicians to get licenses to be allowed to practice. This regulation has served to engender public confidence in the efficacy and safety of medications prescribed because they undergo FDA approval. Another regulatory intervention that the government uses is Medicare funding and National Institutes of Health research that helps create a financial base for the sectors in the healthcare industry (Fox et al 1170).

            The problem in government regulation in healthcare has several facets. State regulation is sometimes led by excessive influence of the high ranking in jurisdictions without the best interest of the public. Federal regulatory agencies are unnecessarily slow, inefficient, and bureaucratic. In some instances, state regulation has led to confusion due to a lack of clarity of the division of authority in charge of a given aspect of regulation. There is a semblance of federal pre-emption of state regulation of healthcare insurance. The problem in government regulation in healthcare needs a clear definition of lines of responsibility among regulatory agencies (Fiscella 1139).

            In my future role as a nurse, I anticipate difficulty adjudicating who should be treated and who will not be based on their economic standing. If the current debate on whether healthcare should be a right or a privilege continues, prospects are that physicians will be faced with the problem of whether to uphold their oath of the duty to benefit their patients or not because of a patient’s lack of affordability (Svorny 87). However, my conviction that healthcare should be a right has sparked in me a desire to want to treat all patients equally regardless of their economic status. This conviction will help me to team with other likeminded people in advocating for equal access to quality healthcare for all.