Our Future with insurance companies

I was reading an article in a magazine stating the relationship between obesity and health insurance. The articles showed the relation between people who are on the heaver side are more prone to get diseases and chronic illnesses are having problems with their insurance company. These illnesses include diabetes and chronic cardiovascular problems. So the article stated that people who are more on the obese side or the heavier side tend not to be covered by their insurance. Many of these insurance companies some how try to come up with some kind of excuse so that they do not have to cover their issuers. They blame this issue on the issuers for having preexisting conditions that caused them to have a certain disease. So many of the patients were told that aren’t covered for medication/treatment for certain illnesses and disease. One of the cases includes an elderly old man around the age of 75 who has retired and a veteran. He has diabetes and developed many complications from it. He has many joint and wrist problems and this has decreased his mobility hence making him to gain a lot of weight. This man has to have a surgery on his leg, which is a very expensive process and at first his insurance company was willing to pay for this procedure until they learnt about his weight gain. They said that they weren’t going to pay for the procedure because he was getting to fat and it wasn’t going to be covered by his insurance. Eventually he sued the insurance company and they settled. But there was a struggle to get this issue resolved. Tis person was a veteran; he served with his life to defend our country so we can carry out the same kind of lifestyle. So why did he have to go through all this trouble just to settle in court? So are insurance companies just denying people their needed coverage knowing the people wouldn’t fight back?

As American we are the most obese out of all the people around the world. We also live in a time period were technology has heavy influence in our lives and our lifestyles is more laid-back/lethargic. This mean we are getting fat slow as time goes by. So this means that as American we are slowly lose are insurance. What does this all mean? And how does this affect our future?

Why selling of organs on the black market is wrong!

I am writing my post this week on the selling of black market organs for compensation. I for one don't understand why someone would put their life on the line in order for small amounts of money. I understand that in India and other third world countries that 2500$ would be a lot of money. However, this makes no sense to me. When you donate an organ on the black market, your risk of infection or internal bleeding increases dramatically. The only case in which I would donate one of my kidneys, would be if one of my closest family members was in need for a kidney and I was a perfect match. I would do it then without any second thoughts.
 Another reason the selling of black market organs  is dangerous is because there is no guarantee that you will receive that financial compensation you were promised. Since the black market is both illegal and unregulated, the likelihood of your money being lost or not paid in full is very high. This wouldn't be mentioned in our ethics books if this wasn't a problem these people are facing. Even though the dangers are high, millions of people see no other way out. The only way to solve this problem is to educate the people about these dangers and hopefully she's some light on the problems that black market organ selling can cause. I feel like this position is more of how a Kantain ethicist would take because educating poor people on these dangers does the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.  I firmly believe that the only situation that donating an organ should even cross your mind is with the case of a dying family member. Even then, a medical professional in a regulated hospital is the only course of action one should take in order to secure ones safety and reduce the risk of potentially fatal complications. Once again I am firmly against the illegal selling of organs for financial compensation. There should be educational programs established to warn people of these dangers.  The last thing we need to do as a people is to make people continue to think that selling organs for  money by non professionals is okay and safe to do. That is my position on the matter!

Healthcare: U.S vs Canada

 

Is the United States of America health care system better than Canada’s? I say no, with there being up to millions of people in the America living without health care and lots of others not happy with their health care services. I do believe that we need that we need a change in the health care system and it needs to be more like Canada. Canada’s health care system is a group of socialized health insurance plans that provide coverage to all Canadian citizens. It is publicly funded and administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guide lines set by the federal government. In Canada instead of paying insurance premiums to different insurance companies, the government is only the insurer. It is against the law some areas in Canada to pay out of pocket to receive better service. The government is then able to make sure that wealthy people don’t get better services than others.

The next question is should America adopt Canada’s health care system? Most people feel that if we adopt Canada’s health care system the quality of health care services will go down. People other than doctors fear that if doctors are told what to charge patients then the physicians will not compete for services, and they will stop giving their overall best care so they receive the most money. And maybe the health care system will try and compete government ran programs but that’s if the government pays for health care. They say another reason most Americans don’t want to adopt Canada’s health care system is that health services might need to be limited to stay within budget.  Canada’s government limits its health services by cutting out the high costing experimental procedures.

 

With the way the health care system is set up in the United States most Americans are insured by their employer and that’s if they have a job. Those that do receive insurance from their employer most of the time do not receive good health care services from the employer. So they have to settle with what they have until something else comes along. Some employer’s health insurance is so crappy their insurance only pays for half of it and they expect you to pay the other half and for those already living in poverty or middle class workers can’t afford to pay it. For example if someone needs a heart replacement and the cost the services are ranging from 30 to 40,000 dollars where does the insurance company expect them to  get this type of money from. So how do you guys feel about this………

Behind the Affordable Care Act

     After hearing Americans complain about the new Affordable Care Act, and after discussing medical insurance in class, I decided to investigate the details of this new law that most people despise so much. I found that this Act is exactly what Americans needed to offset the dominance that the insurance companies have over the lives of the American people. According to the Affordable Care Act (Read the Law), insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to people because of pre-existing conditions, preventative care is completely free, small business owners that must offer health care to their employees will receive a tax credit in order to offset the new expense, and patients  now have the ability to appeal to insurance companies that deny the cost of  their treatment. This new law sounds like everything this nation has needed for decades. Yes, people have to pay for insurance now, but if people want insurance in America (which the vast majority of them do), they are going to have to pay for it whether the Affordable Care Act is there or not. I think this new law will do wonders for our country in providing millions of Americans with coverage that they desperately need, as well as making sure that insurance companies are treating their customers fairly. I understand that small business owners are inconvenienced by having to supply their employees with health care, but they will receive all of that money back in their income taxes. Personally, I hope this law stays around for a long time. What do you guys think?

References 

Read the Law. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2014, from    http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/rights/law/index.html

Healthcare for All

Having good healthcare coverage is one of the most important things each and every one of us can do for ourselves and for our families. Its one of those monthly bills that seems like such a burden, such a pain, until you or a loved one actually need it. No one likes to pay a high premium but anyone who has ever had an appointment with a specialist, has ever had a surgical procedure or a trip to the emergency room knows what the astronomical bills associated with them looks like; it requires a moment of silence and then a slap back into reality as you gain an awareness that without your health insurance policy you would be, if not definitely then most probably, covered in debt for the rest of your life. But this is a burden and worry not shared by most other developed countries. It seems odd that in a country built on democracy, wealth and a sense of solidarity, getting care that someone needs and often when their lives depend on it is something that could potentially render them indigent. So why is it that the United States differs so greatly in this respect compared to the whole of Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, etc...

Well, for one, its really difficult to make policy changes that would take away a multi-billion dollar business from corporations whose infrastructure is so delicately intertwined with that of the domestic government.

While there is no singular reason to blame for this mess, I think a couple of factors could or may be playing a role; two things actually that combine into one major obstacle to the United States ever instituting universal, government run healthcare. I think that our sense of solidarity, of which I mentioned earlier, is very superficial. And the reason for this, aside from the obvious (greed), could very well be the size of our nation. Many countries are the size of one of our states. We are spread out and that takes the problems and suffering of our fellow countrymen out of our immediate view. Out of sight, out of mind right? Its easy not to take pity on people with an issue that you don't ever come into direct contact with. I think we lack a sense of community and thereby the collective, communal consciousness that characterizes so many other countries. The second factor that I think is at play here is the overshadowing role that lobbyists play in policy decision. In the film someone mentioned that the American people are scared of their government but in many other developed countries (I think this was in reference to France) the government is scared of its people. This means that other governments do things (like provide access healthcare) to keep its people happy. It seems like the American democratic system is a little off balanced.

But this needs to change, and seeing a way out is difficult in the current political system.

Black Market Organs

       In class we discussed a case study about the black market for organs. A poor ricksaw (taxi) driver in India sold his kidney to get money to pay off his debts and hopefully live a comfortable life. He was not paid in full and the surgery caused more complications, deteriorating his health. Sadly many poor people in India lack education and don't understand the risks that come with living with just one kidney. I could not imagine what this man is going through. He was suppose to get a better life by selling his organ, but only got hardship. Many corrupt doctors in India are trafficking people to sell their organs. This is just so sad in so many ways. With no education and barley and mean of money, many people in India and the surrounding countries resort to selling their organs. In this article I read, people in Nepal are being targeted for this so called trafficking. The middleman goes to countries around India, trying to find people who are willing to sell their organs. Sometimes people are abducted and are forced to remove their organs. Obviously this is highly illegal in America because of a law passed in the 1980s. But, if you were in the position of the man in the case study, what would you do?

        Having the knowledge that I do, i would never sell my organ no matter what kind of offer is given to me. I would find another way to get the money. I could not live with that fact that i'm harming my own body just to help another. For a close family member, yes my opinion will change. I MIGHT think about donating a kidney, but as for selling, that will never happen. Like I said in class, my cousin's father in law, who is a very rich man, went to Sri Lanka and got a the kidney he needed when both of his kidney's were on the verge of failing. Now he is a perfectly healthy man. But being a good Samaritan, he is still in contact with the family and tries to support them in any hardships that the person who donated has.


http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/26/world/asia/freedom-project-nepals-organ-trail/

Healthcare for a Killer.

       We read a case study in class about a man, Horacio Alberto Reyes-Camarena, who was sent to death row for stabbing an 18 year old girl and dumping her body near the Oregon coast.  However, this man is currently receiving high-quality and lifesaving dialysis treatment, for his failing kidneys.  This kind of treatment is very expensive and time consuming, (for the nurses that must provide the treatment) that many other (“non-criminal”) people desperately need as well, yet simply cannot afford it.  Meanwhile a convicted killer is simply receiving this costly, and lifesaving treatment completely free without any expense to him.  Obviously this is not the only case in which a convicted felon has received similar treatments for no cost, in fact most of these institutions have free, top of the line healthcare for their inmates.  Yet nothing is really ever “free” so who is really paying for all of this expensive healthcare for these inmates?  The taxpayers of course; all of the working class, tax paying Americans fund the maintaining and up keep of the healthcare for convicted felons.  Personally, I find this to be downright absurd.  We should not be required to pay for the healthcare and lifesaving treatments for those people who we define as being heinous beings that do not even receive many of the basic human rights.  If these criminals are heinous enough to believe that they somehow have more of a right to life than another human being life, then why must we pay to keep them alive when they are responsible for taking away the lives of those whom we love. It is said, that ‘’All men are created equal.” I do firmly stand behind this statement presented in the constitution and believe that all men and women regardless of race, income, or gender should be entitled to the same benefits and opportunities. However, when a human being takes life and those matters into his own hands and has the audacity to end a life of another, they are no longer considered a beneficial part of society. Instead of giving back to the greater good, they are taking away from it. I believe that they do not deserve the same benefits or privileges. I am not inferring that they have lost the path of redemption, but I do believe that their road should be a lot rockier than someone who has been a victim of this crime. For example, hypothetically, John has been convicted of countless crimes ranging from petty theft to public drunkenness. One night he deliberately decides to go into Jane’s (his neighbor’s house) and murder one of her 3 children. Jane is a single mother who can barely support her 3 children and elderly grandmother- much less provide a substantial amount of money for insurance. After this unfortunate event, Jane is left traumatized without insurance, while John is able to soak up the benefits while in prison. This example may seem to be extreme to us, but instances happen like this all the time. This is not just, particularly for a country that prides itself on justice. 

Health Care in America

As we saw in the film Sicko, in America some patients go through life threatening situations that involves immediate healthcare yet are denied because of no health care insurance or because their insurance company does not cover whatever treatment that they need. Huffingtonpost states that, President Obama pointed out that a survey found that over the last three years, more than 12 million Americans were either refused overall coverage, refused coverage for a specific condition or subject to higher premium costs. We all are aware that there are a plethora of people in the United States that die because of conditions such as these. Yet, our responses to allowing more accessible health care to all citizens is that it will cause:  Increase taxes, lower the quality of treatment and medications, or even something more chaotic as in lowing doctors paying! 

In recent Kaiser Health News, Illinois patients with Medicaid are denied new drugs for Hepatitis C. This drug is curing Hepatitis C, but Medicaid officials are preventing sicker patients from getting this drug.  Also,  states that Federal law requires Medicaid programs to pay for FDA-approved drugs from certain pharmaceutical companies regardless of cost, but allows states to restrict who can get them.  So on one end of the spectrum we have people that are struggling to get  coverage for drugs that they can not afford; however, we have people that are in prison who are getting all the healthcare services that they need. Marketplace health care reported that the nation spends more than $6.5 billion every year on healthcare services for the men and women who are incarcerated. They go on to say that this is a reason why some inmates come back after being released from prison. Shocking right?

I am not trying to say that the government shouldn't pay for prisoners insurance only that if they can afford to take care of the criminals why not the innocent? As what was mentioned in the Sicko film full healthcare is given to terrorists that are in prison. Why not the woman who works hard here in America but simply cannot afford the breast cancer surgery that she needs?

Basic health care for all.

        Personally, I think that all American citizens should have some form of basic health care coverage, regardless of their income. As it stands currently, all hospitals, both public and privately funded, are required by law to administer treatment to all patients in the event of an emergency, regardless of the patient's insurance status or ability to provide financial recompensation. In addition, publicly funded hospitals are also required by law to treat their patients even in non-emergency situations without regard to their ability to pay. However, private hospitals are not held to the same legalities as public hospitals, and can refuse to treat a patient who does not have medical insurance, or even evict the patient from the hospital once emergency treatment is no longer necessary. This leaves patients without insurance with serious, if often non-fatal, diseases and medical conditions that are left untreated due to the expense of the corrective medical procedures. Indeed, hospital bills can create immense financial strain on uninsured patients. In many instances, hospitals have resorted to filing lawsuits against their patients, placing liens on their houses or garnishing their wages. Many of the citizens who lack insurance do so simply because they lack the ability to pay for it, and these measures of collection cause them to become even more destitute. Meanwhile, the state of Texas alone pays 1.35 million dollars annually for the dialysis treatments of its prison inmates. If we can pay for the treatments of convicted criminals, then surely we can afford some measure of treatment for our less than fortunate.

Sicko……….. Michael Moore Documentary

Sicko is a documentary by the infamous Michael Moore. In the documentary Moore examines the American Healthcare System and compares it to other countries like France and Cuba.  It should not come as no surprise to those familiar with Michael’s work that he takes a very strong political liberal position on the issue of healthcare, and the stance on universal healthcare in France, Cuba, and Canada. Even if you disagree with Moore, Sicko is worth watching for its crazy and disturbingly accurate portrayal of the fallings of healthcare in America. I’m not saying France, Cuba, and Canada have all the answers nor do they have the perfect system but in examining the way we do things, Moore makes us look in the mirror and seriously question the way we take care of our own citizens.

Moore doesn’t hog the camera he actually lets real Americans tell the story of how the government played with rescue workers lives and our broken healthcare system. Here are the stories:

Financially crippled by co-pays and deductibles, one couple must sell their family home and move into their daughter's basement.

Another woman has her health insurance retroactively cancelled because she forgot to disclose on her application that she had years ago suffered from a common yeast infection which was completely resolved with a prescription cream.

Doctors believe a man suffering from kidney cancer could be saved with a bone marrow transplant procedure, which is denied by his insurer. His family cannot afford the procedure out-of-pocket, so he forgoes care and dies shortly thereafter, leaving behind his wife and young son.

A young mother calls 911 and has the ambulance rush her feverish 18-month-old daughter to the nearest emergency room, only to be denied care because it was a non-network hospital. By the time the insurance issue was straightened out, it was too late to save her daughter's life.

A sick and disoriented woman is discharged from a hospital and dumped in front of a homeless shelter. She is wearing nothing but a hospital gown and wanders aimlessly up and down the street until someone from the shelter sees her and approaches her to assist. It turns out that the hospital had discharged her because her insurance benefits had run out.

Sicko was a great documentary for one because it a thought provoking documentary. He showed you how our healthcare system was broken and he did a great job at convincing viewers that they shouldn’t be satisfied with the way our health care system is being ran. Moore’s film is a call to action for the American Government. While watching Sicko I really questioned staying in America.

Parents' rights to to put children through transgender reformation

The issue of changing gender is one that not only applies to adults, or even teenagers. In some cases, children can feel as if they do not belong to the gender they were born into. In these cases, is it appropriate for the parents to go ahead and make the decision to assist their child in the process of gender transformation? In certain cases, including one that ABC News took a look at, I believe if the child is showing obvious signs of gender ambiguity and it can be shown that these thoughts and beliefs are not just part of a brief phase where the child is acting as a “tomboy” or “a boy who likes to play with dolls” but are in fact how they identify themselves, that these sorts of decisions made by the parents are completely justified.

            By going ahead and taking action in this case, the parents have helped their child match their mental identity of gender and their physical one. These types of decisions being made early have been shown to help those who undergo the process to gain confidence in their new gender. Many have claimed that this is wrong or unnatural and have also argued that the former little girl should have been given more time to decide as to whether or not she still wanted to be physically altered. Some suggest that this decision should have been made in the teen years of the child so that way they can concretely confirm their gender choice.

However, based of the evidence shown in the news clip, and the reports given by the professionals that took part in the process, I think that the parents have improved the quality of life for the child. If they were to have waited until the little girl was older and well into her teens, the child would not have lived comfortably in her body as she grew up. During key developmental years, she would have felt out of place and probably would not have had a similar experience to other children growing up around her. Because she will be able to grow up as a boy, and because she identifies herself as a boy, as she grows up and develops mentally and physically she will be able to better self-identify, which in many professionals opinion greatly benefits the child well into his adult years.

  This is the link to the article found by ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/parents-transgender-child-choose-gender-23954641

-David Higgins

We are not France or Cuba! We are America!

          I know this is going to start many arguments, but this how I felt about the movie we watched today. I think its funny how every time I have been forced to watch a Michael Moore movie, people seem to be sucked into believing that something is horribly wrong with America. First off, Michael Moore and his movies are not made to raise awareness, they are made to make money. Michael Moore has made millions and millions of dollars off of his movies, so you must keep that in the back of your mind and you watch them. First off free socialized medicine is NOT FREE! When you have to pay 40-50% in taxes, on top of a mortgage and gas and groceries, you are not left with much else. In the movie a French engineer and his wife are living comfortably. If Michael Moore really wanted to make a point he would've shown us a low income French persons house and see what they thought. There is nothing wrong with the way our healthcare system is being run. Well, I take that back, Obamacare is already a nightmare. Obamacare has the potential to cripple America drastically. That's what happens when you don't read the bill before you pass them, and you elect elect liberals into the White House.
         Lets look at France and Cuba, the population of Cuba as of 2013 was 11.27 million people. In France, the population was 66.03 million people. That's not a lot of people to take care of, so the quality of care being given to those individuals is better because there are fewer people. In the United States of America, the population was 316.1 million in 2013. With 4 times more people than France and Cuba combined, the healthcare cannot be free and as good of quality as depicted in the movie because there are so many more people. Socialized healthcare would crash and burn due to the fact that it would cost trillions of dollars. In order to provide that kind of quality care, we would have to be taxed even more than we already are. The answer always seems to be easy to liberal leaders. Lets share the wealth. I'm sorry but that's not how this works in America. I am all for helping people out and doing my fair share, but taking more of my hard earned money to provide free healthcare is ridiculous. Middle class families are already taxed way too much as it is. There are hundreds of reasons why America is the greatest country on earth. One of those reasons is Capitalism and freedom. We aren't socialist for a reason, it looks good on paper, but when you apply it to an actual society, it never works. Same goes with Communism.
Another point I would like to make is that when Michael Moore uses Guantanamo Bay as a great place to get healthcare. What they don't tell you is that at Guantanamo is that the reason for the great healthcare is because they torture the hell out of those evil terrorists to get information about future terrorist activities. With all the media coverage, you don't want to see mangled up tortured prisoners, that's where the state of the art medical service comes in. They come in to clean up the mess. Now lets look at Cuba. If Cuba is so great, why aren't more people moving to Cuba to get this wonderful healthcare? Oh, that right because Cuba is a third world communist country run by a fanatical dictator. The only reason more Cuban people aren't in America is because they have decent healthcare to keep them pandering to the communist regime, and they are so poor that they cant afford to leave. If given the opportunity, I can guarantee that more Cuban people would rather be in America. The last point I want to make is that socialism is not all that its cracked up to be. its like the great Margaret Thatcher once said, " Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money". America is NOT BROKEN, so why do we need to fix it? America is a wonderful country with wonderful people who are looking out for each other. The doctors care about their patients more than most people even know. Social medicine is also not fair to the doctors in any way whatsoever. Doctors should be paid greatly for the service they provide. With social medicine, doctors have to take a pay cut! That is the last thing we need, because Doctors deserve more than that due to the knowledge and sacrifices they make everyday. In the end Michael Moore doesn't care about healthcare, all he cares about is making his movie look like he cares about normal everyday people. All he cares about is looking good for the camera.  I feel sorry for anyone who thinks that Michael Moore knows anything about health, because he is the epitome of health! I feel sorry for anyone who actually believes anything that comes out of his mouth. All Michael Moore's movies are nothing but liberal propaganda, and I feel sorry for anyone who drinks the Kool Aid that he and any liberal is serving. If I would've have known that we were watching this movie in class today, I would've stayed in bed!

Why don't we have a Health care system like Canada?

This week’s blog I want to talk about the issue that was acknowledged in the documentary by Michael Moore. The documentary brought up the issue regarding health care. The saw the differences in heath care and brought up the debatable topic of universal health care. And Moore always seemed to bring up one question over and over again “Why can’t we all have a system is which everyone has universal health care?” This question always intrigued me so why is that we cannot have a universal healthcare system. Maybe it’s in our nature as Americans that we are rigid in our old ways/habits. We aren’t willing to see the overall good for the public but the good of an individual. Also the way the government is run is a big reason why we aren’t making any good laws that can help the majority. The majority of US citizens don’t even vote. Because we are misguided of are candidates or we just don’t seem to agree or understand their principles and policies. So the wrong politicians are just being elected over and over again to our Congress, House and White House. Our country was built on the principle that people should run the government by electing people to represent our views. Instead we see the same Washington that has always been there, Lobbyists and Big Companies having total control over Washington. Which isn’t really fair to the constituents these politicians are supposed to represent. The ones who are benefiting are the lobbyist for the big companies and politicians who get paid off by the companies. So how do we fix this? I believe that the only way to fix this would be by restarting Washington. Basically get rid of the old ways that Washington runs, instead of electing old people into office maybe we might need to bring in some young blood to get a new change in Washington. In the case of having socialized health care system what is wrong, it benefits the whole nation. Look at countries like England, France, and Canada their system has created a really health lifestyle for the citizens. Yes their taxes might be high but in the long it helps majority in a whole multifaceted ways. It creates healthy lives and gives the country a strong run to progress. In short Universal health care system is great (look at other countries that has them), so why shouldn’t we as Americans have them? Maybe it is the time for change?

We Should Care More About Health Than Wealth

I'm not going to say America isn't a great country but we, like everyone else, have some problems. One big one is health care. Ironically, getting proper care in America can do more harm than good what with the outrageous costs of receiving treatment which can cause you to go untreated or lose everything you own to save your health. So why on earth would we allow anyone to go without affordable treatment?! Insurance companies are screwing over individuals left and right for their own profits because they are just that, companies that need to make a profit. Furthermore, they are owned and run by greedy people who want to maximize profits indefinitely, and what is so profitable about a free healthcare system?! What is even worse is that they have a heavy influence on our law system and our government! Why can't these people donate money to hospitals instead of to the pockets of congressmen and senators? Because that isn't how you stay in business or make money, and business is cutthroat and "free" isn't profitable. Insurance should be run by the government that is supposed to work for the people not by an individual who wants to turn a profit. I know it isn't major or anything but I have been screwed over by my (former) insurance company in the past. I had been to the dentist because I was experiencing extreme pain in my mouth and getting massive headaches and had found out that my wisdom teeth were coming in and I didn't have enough room in my mouth for them and it was suggested they be removed. I had been to the oral surgeon for a review and had already scheduled an appointment, gone over presurgery requirements, had the operation approved by my insurance, AND they had already given me my necessary prescriptions!! I was all set to go and so excited that I wouldn't be in anymore pain! Unfortunately, ONE WEEK before my scheduled procedure the DOCTORS office called me to say that my insurance company had completely dropped my coverage and that it would cost THOUSANDS if i wanted to get my teeth out. So my mom called the insurance and sure enough I was officially uninsured and remained so until last year. Once I was insured again I rescheduled my surgery and could only get my teeth removed the day before Thanksgiving last year aka finals week which, surprise surprise didn't go well when I was doped up on multiple different painkillers. My personal experience has left me a strong advocate for free healthcare in the United States. What are your views on the health care system in this country.

Universal Health Care System in America... or Naw

The annual survey from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has shown that the United States has  much higher expendatures on on its health care than many other developed countries. However, The United States has a higher rate of obesity than many other nations, is currently ranked 26th in life expectancy out of 34 OECD countries, has a rather high infant mortality rate for a developed country, and has a higher percentage of citizens who currently have a prescription for pharmacuticals than many other nations. As well, the United States is one of the only developed, Western countries that does not have a universal health care system in place for its citizens. Through our discussion in class today, we all seemed to come to a unanomous decision that free health care would not work in America but why? 

Many citizens of the United States are against the idea of a universal health care system because they believe it would result in a large increase in taxes. However, as we saw in the documentary, there are indeed numerous countries that have this sort of  health care system and still have an affordable cost of living. Additonally, many American citizens have an ideal of being independent and self-made. Thus, many are opposed to the idea of having the taxes of others pay for their operations, and would prefer to actually possess the necesary funds themselves. However, there are those who either believe that this standard should be universal in this country, or simply desire to hoard their own funds in preparation for some unforseen medical expense within their own family, and therefore do not want their own tax money to pay towards the health expenses of others. However, a very common argument for the institution of a free, universal health care is that many citizens who lack the necessary funds for such expenses medical procedures and will thusly be unprepared in the event of a medical crisis. Also, if health care was free then those citizens would be able to not be as impoverished and such. What do you think? 

Genetic Testing Case

As we discussed in class, undergoing a genetic test and getting a positive test result about developing a disease does not guarantee that someone may gain that disease, it only give the person probabilities of developing that disease. Consider a genetic testing case where the moral issue is a conflict between the duty of the family member to warn when an inherited disorder is discovered and also the obligation of physician to maintain the patient’s autonomy and right to privacy.

A case study shows this moral issue encountered from Genetics Generation.  Rachel’s mother side of the family has a history of breast cancer and her mother died of it when she was young. Rachel has two sisters, Lisa and Kristin. She is no longer close to Kristin but she does have a close relationship with Lisa. Rachel’s doctor recommends her to have a genetic test in order to test for a susceptibility of breast cancer because of her family history. After having the testing done she finds out that she has a mutated BRCA1 gene and at high risk for developing breast and ovarian cancer. Since Rachel has two sisters who could also be in harm, her doctor asks her to recommend her sisters to be tested too so they can take proper precautionary measures. However, Rachel states that she will inform Lisa about BRCA1 and genetic testing but she will not inform Kristin. Rachel’s doctor knows that she can find Kristin but she doesn’t want to breach Kristin’s confidentiality if she ignores Kristin’s wishes.

We discussed in class that genetic testing does not guarantee that the patient will most definitely have the disorder. But this case is different because the patient is dealing with a chance of having cancer. Therefore, there are precautionary steps that the patient must take in order to fight this cancer. In certain cases respect for patient’s autonomy is not guaranteed.  In this situation, the duty to warn seems much stronger than the patient’s autonomy because of the harm that can be done to the patient’s sister. One of the issues when people discovered that they have breast cancer is that they found out late and miss the opportunity to decrease some of the harms that it brings. Of course genetic testing is not guaranteed  that this patient or her sisters will get breast cancer. But in this case, since they have a family history of this cancer I think it would be important for them to be aware and try to avoid the harm of not doing anything about it now. In this case, I think that the doctor should override Rachel’s decision on not telling her sister.