Healthcare is a privilege that is within reach of the rich, a benediction supplied strictly under the consideration of a business who hires, a government-financed insurance plan for the aged, or a generous gift supplied from the generosity of other individuals. Our Founding Fathers said that we are gifted with indispensable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is understood that for individuals to live, then we must remain healthy. However, there is very little discussion of this right in the Constitution. One particular amendment to the Constitution says that convicts are to be approved to have a right to healthcare (Healthcare: A Privilege, Not a Right, 2011).
Presently, convicts are the only ones that are given the right to healthcare. If our Founding Fathers would have foreseen how important healthcare would become, it is likely that they would have allowed each and every individual to have a right to healthcare. When the Constitution was being framed, although inadequate in comparison to the present norms, healthcare was more or less attainable to all individuals. There wasn’t a large deficit of people that could not afford it or have access to it (Healthcare: A Privilege, Not a Right, 2011).
Makers of the Constitution, such as Thomas Jefferson, were greatly affected from their own happenings. Thomas Jefferson was not very trusting of doctors, and instead trusted nature. Founded on a practical image of the inadequate and unorganized healthcare system in the 1700s, the Founding Fathers didn’t think it was necessary to make healthcare a right under the Constitution. There wasn’t any way of predicting the fact that healthcare would become such an important piece of everyday life and vital to the pursuit of happiness (Healthcare: A Privilege, Not a Right, 2011).
The United States and our healthcare have dramatically changed since the Revolutionary War era. Presently, we are endowed with a system that has great potential to improve the quality of life. In 1840, life expectancy was 38 years, and now, in 2013, it has climbed to 78 years of age. We have witnessed a lot of healthcare arbitrations that have aided in improving the quality of life. However, the advancements in quantity as well as quality of life happened in accordance with prices that elevated without question and relatively to the assets of the United States (Healthcare: A Privilege, Not a Right, 2011).
Currently, the healthcare system of the United States is very costly, as it is priced at more than 2 trillion dollars every twelve months, and consumed 14% of the United State’s gross domestic product in 2004. During the last decade, as the prices and complicatedness of healthcare increased, the U.S. reciprocated by making temporary ways to pay for healthcare for the majority of its people. Presently, even though the ability to alleviate hardship as well as prolonging life is expanding, the capability to furnish these services to every one of our resident is continuously descending. The detachment amongst beneficial healthcare and the monetary capability of each resident to access this healthcare brings the question of is healthcare a right or privilege to the surface, and as stated before, I feel it is a privilege (Healthcare: A Privilege, Not a Right, 2011).
References:
Healthcare: A Privilege, Not a Right. (2011). Retrieved from Cover All Families: A Site For Sensible Health Care: http://www.coverallfamilies.org/www.coverallfamilies.org
