Universal Healthcare Won't Work

Katrina Merva, '22

Universalized and completely government-controlled healthcare will cause a less efficient, underfunded, and overall worse healthcare system. The core of our free-market economy, which allows many businesses and innovations to survive and thrive, is competition. Free universal healthcare completely eliminates competition in the medical world, and doctors would likely not be as productive if they all got paid the same as others regardless of their skill. Both excellent and mediocre doctors would have the same salary, and hospitals would no longer be striving to come up with new medical innovations so that they can end out on top. In addition, it would be a disaster for the patients and the public. The DMV is government run, and when I was getting my driving test, I waited in line for 2 hours. What if I was having a heart attack or a seizure, and my hospital was government run?  
In European countries, the wait time and quality in single payer healthcare systems (where the government pays for medical insurance) is horrible. Even if I was treated in time under universal healthcare, doctors would have many more patients and would be more likely to be overwhelmed and less focused on their jobs, especially since free health care would probably lead to many Americans taking it for granted and being less careful about their health. Even if you choose to disregard everything about the likely mechanics of a free healthcare system and believe that it would be quick and seamless, imagine the economic burden on the government and on taxpayers. An efficient, high-tech healthcare system is far from cheap and would be almost impossible to install. The money taxpayers pay would go more towards government management of medical institutions than to the doctors themselves. Thousands of dollars would be wasted on the mechanics of government regulation and would not be used to help people and doctors. The free market allows everyone to get the treatment that they deserve. The ACA (the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare) still allows for need-based insurance, which benefits those who cannot pay full price for the best private health care. The free-market healthcare system is the better one, in terms of quality of care, doctors who are capable and enthusiastic to perform their jobs, and security that if you need immediate medical attention, you will get it, instead of waiting hours and hours to only receive average care.