The Current State of American Healthcare

While the founders of the United States said the truths of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are self-evident, they didn’t fully secure the ability to prevent others from preying upon these truths. Now, after more than two centuries, we still struggle to fully obtain these truths. As far as I’m concerned, there is no happiness if you can’t be healthy, but in the United States our health is at the mercy of profiteers who find ways to capitalize upon our diseases and injuries. To obtain good health you have to buy insurance and that can easily cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every month. To keep their workforce healthy, many employers cover those insurance costs and this has seemed reasonable to many, if not most, Americans.

 The problem with employers covering health insurance expenses for their employees has been twofold. The number one problem has been that pharmaceutical companies have not been held in check. Things that are necessary to maintaining good health have been allowed to make astronomical profits off of very inexpensive products—insulin, for example.  These unchecked costs have to be dealt with by insurance companies that in turn pass them on to their customers, making health insurance far too expensive for employers to cover. These costs drive employers to take measures to affordably cover their employees. This might be with high deductibles or minimal prescription coverage. The burden of affording decent health coverage becomes difficult.

 The second problem is that health insurance depends too often on employment. This, of course, proved especially problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic which caused a complete lockdown thus leaving many unemployed and without health insurance. One might as well be left to gamble the Vegas strip for their healthcare in the United States. That hardly makes life seem “self-evident,” let alone being able to pursue happiness.

 And then, during the pandemic, the supreme court overturned the fifty-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling that allowed women to have abortions with restrictions varying from state to state. Now states can ban abortion altogether. Some states, like Idaho where I live, tend to view abortion as wrong in all cases failing to understand how certain cases can endanger the lives of women and their fetuses. Some lawmakers have even suggested that the life of the fetus should be prioritized above that of the mother. And doctors can be prosecuted for performing an abortion by a woman’s rapist’s family if that is how she was impregnated! Here the law clearly interferes with a doctor’s Hippocratic oath. Family doctors now want to stop caring for pregnant women because they can’t risk imprisonment and the well being of their own families. One hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho no longer offers obstetrics because of this. Idaho is far down on the list of doctors per capita, making healthcare scarce as it is. Now our unreasonable abortion laws will make it even more difficult for anyone to get healthcare.

 I fully believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are self-evident, but I’m not sure our government, especially in a state like Idaho, sees it as anything more than a platitude to obtain independence from Great Britain. Perhaps the greatest irony is that in the United Kingdom adequate healthcare is a national priority secured by the National Health Service.