Government Provided Health Care Essay

For many years, health care cost has risen and challenged many businesses, households, and the government. With the health care cost constantly rising, more and more people become uninsured. There are many approaches to improve the health care system including: Government-provided health care, Private insurer health care, and a mix of both. Although, all the different ways have their perks, government provided stands out. Government provided health care is the best approach because every American citizen will have health insurance, it would simplify the system, all workers will have health care benefits, and it will contain and lower costs more than any other approach. Having every American citizen being provided with health insurance, and eliminating private insurers, will definitely simplify the system. All that would need to be done to jump start government provided health care is to create a single payer system, replace current insurance premiums, lower prices on drugs, and create a universal set of insurance forms to cover everyone. Every American deserves to have access to high quality and affordable health care, no matter what their income situation, employment situation, or medical conditions. With the government provided system, all workers will have health care benefits, and lower costs on health insurance. Workers will have greater freedom and better choices if they don’t have to worry about picking a job solely for the health care benefits. Over the years, there has been lots of evidence that shows the single payer system is the best approach to achieving basic health care goals. First, two government offices, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and General Accounting Office Greear 2 (GAO) reached a conclusion that only the single payer plan was likely to save the most money. Second, Medicare claims that the single payer system for  the elderly has lower administrative and overall costs than any other approach thus far. Third, Canada has a single payer system, which has much lower administrative costs than the U.S. System. Health care administration costs in the U.S. In 1999 was over 200 billion, to whereas Canada’s was only 159 billion. The single payer system works so well in Canada, its only logical to try the system here. Finally, the government provided, single payer system could achieve cost containment success more readily than any other system with three basic principals. First, this system may make it possible to reduce the administrative costs in the U.S. Second, the single payer system may be able to vigorously attack the market condition, where there is only one buyer, and gain bargaining powers over other providers. Finally, the single payer system could control the overall level of health care resources. All in all, the single payer system is less costly than any other approach and spends a slightly smaller amount of the gross domestic product (GDP) on health, according to Sherry Glied from Columbia University. The differences in system performance among the different coverages are small, but government provided, single payer system has the most distinct difference as far as cost containment and savings. At some point, everyone will need access to health care or treatment, with government provided insurance, that will be taken care of. Work Cited DeGrazia, D. â€Å"Single Payer Meets Managed Competition.† Hastings Center Report 38.1 (2008): 23-33. CINAHL. Web. 22 May 2013. Glied, S. â€Å"Single Payer As A Financing Mechanism.† Journal Of Health Politics, Policy & Law 34.4 (2009): 593-615. CINAHL. Web. 22 May 2013. Publicagenda.org-Health Care. Citizens’ Solutions Guides 2012. Web. 22 May 2013.