Saturday, March 23, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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Editor’s note: The following column was submitted to the Sun after the writer, a student at UNLV, attended a special debate this month between members of the university’s debate team and visiting scholars from the Brookings Institution. The topic was whether the U.S. should establish single-payer health insurance coverage.
Although I’m a college student who has led a healthy and active lifestyle, I’ve had a significant amount of experience with the health care system.
I remember, as a kindergartner, clutching my toy puppy dog while being wheeled into an operating room for surgery to correct an obstructed tear duct. Less than five years later, after a day when I experienced excruciating abdominal pain at school, I underwent an emergency appendectomy. My middle school and high school years brought many more trips to the hospital for two broken wrists, HPV vaccinations and orthopedic care for a fractured growth plate in my ankle.
Medical visits were a regular and somewhat frequent aspect of my everyday life. Health care of all sorts was at my fingertips, and I never saw it having a detrimental impact on my family financially.
This is why, when I was old enough to gain a proper understanding, I was shocked to learn that I had lived a life of remarkable privilege — all because my parents’ employers provided our family with adequate health insurance.
Far too many Americans face a drastically different situation. They’re being severely disadvantaged because of our nation’s failure to provide a system of universal health care coverage.
But although I recognize the need to implement a system that would help those individuals, I’m afraid I have to acknowledge something that many progressives won’t: The U.S. isn’t ready for single-payer health care insurance.
Our nation, like it or not, overwhelmingly eschews broad concepts of publicly provided goods, safety nets, widespread taxes and a powerful federal government in comparison to the citizens of other Western nations.
In addition to this prevailing mindset, a majority of Americans receive adequate coverage for themselves and their families through employer-provided insurance and are content with this situation.
That being the case, it is unlikely that single-payer health care can secure a political footing. In addition, a variety of economic and logistical issues are part of the picture.
A single-payer system could result in doctors receiving too many patients, patients waiting too long for treatment, and overall mismanagement on account of paperwork and proceedings being shifted to a single entity.
The U.S. doesn’t have the resources, the economic capability or the political backing to make such a drastic shift.
But just because single-payer health care is at the moment unfeasible, that does not mean that universal health care is. Many plans have been proposed that aim to achieve this goal without completely overhauling the system or abolishing private health care plans.
The time has come for America to pursue policies that will guarantee universal coverage and ensure that health care is a right. Although the Affordable Care Act has served as an important first step, we must address its gaps and weaknesses — whether that is Medicare for All, a public option or other comparable proposals.
Nearly all developed nations — and even those much less developed than the U.S. — have reached the consensus that health care is a right, not a privilege. Our politicians need to put forth their full effort into seeking policy solutions that are tangible, feasible and, most importantly, politically palatable so we can get closer to the goal of universal coverage.
I wish a single-payer health care solution could be adopted quickly, soAmericans everywhere could enjoy the privileges I have. But in such an overhaul, little victories — no matter how small — are still victories.
Ashley Schobert is a double major in economics and political science, and a Brookings public policy minor student at UNLV. She will graduate in May, after winning multiple national championships as a student athlete with the Rebel Girls dance program during her time at UNLV.
