I am a pre-nursing student, and am looking at issues surrounding current healthcare. What has recently caught my eye is the controversy over mandatory health insurance, and I have recently read some articles on the issue that have alarmed me. My first thought is that the government has no right to force me to buy a product I have no choice but to purchase, but my second is that it might have positive effects especially for those who are denied care due to health related issues. However, I cannot accept this as a solution to the healthcare predicament; there must be another way to go about this.
As a future nurse, I am concerned on how, if it comes to be, mandatory health insurance will affect my job and taking care of patients. In one of the articles I read from the Los Angeles Times, it said high deductibles discourage patients from getting preventative treatment. I can only assume that making it a requirement to get health care will drive up prices insanely. In the same article it was also stated that in Massachusetts a couple in their fifties with one child had to pay $767 a month for the bare bones plan and that did not include prescription drug coverage. Will people really seek care or treatment, and can they afford it, at those prices? I believe it is wrong to make someone pay so much for healthcare; it may pay my future salary but is it worth it? Health insurance companies are businesses, that I understand, but they need to be taking care of their customers and fulfilling their purpose so that I as a future nurse do not feel the repercussions of not being able to do my job and help persons in need just because their insurance company does feel like paying. In my honest opinion, when I pay insurance I feel like I'm paying for nothing at all--insurance, yeah right, I cannot even be insured that my insurance will cover anything and I am told that is how they all are. How can people get proper health care this way I ask you?!
I understand that to people who cannot get coverage it may seem like a god-send, I have a friend who had cancer and now cannot find anyone to insure her. She is one person who truly needs health insurance to get preventive treatment and cannot get it due to health insurance policies. It does not make sense to not insure people who are the most in need of healthcare. If they pay their rate (a decent one hopefully), they should get care and they should be able to purchase from at least someone. What a good solution may be is to make it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to people who need it. So what if they lose money, people need to be more important than a paycheck. If the government wants to stick its nose in the business of private citizens then they most certainly can bug the health insurance industry into lower rates and better premiums. If people did not have to pay so much and the insurance companies could be counted on for their purpose then, perhaps more people would seek health care treatment more often and therefore be healthier, happier individuals.
