Universal Health Care Argumentative Essay

“No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here (Kimmel, 2017).” The words, laden with emotion, provoked strong emotions in Mr. Kimmel’s audience. These words touched the hearts of a multitude of Americans, many who worry about the future of their health. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) helps millions of Americans, there still are an abundance of people that have no insurance. In fact, in 2015, 28.5 million adult Americans remained uninsured (“Key Facts about the Uninsured Population”). The United States should have some form of universal health care because good health is a basic human need and is considered a basic human right by many, the United States’ Marketplace …show more content…
However, many uninsured people are hard workers, sometimes working more than one job. In fact, last year 73% of uninsured workers were employed by organizations that did not offer benefits to employees and 46% of the uninsured stated that they had tried to obtain coverage, but the cost of coverage was too high (see Fig. 1) (“Key Facts about the Uninsured Population”). In the past decade insurance premiums have risen 58%, and the employees’ contributions have grown by at least 78% (“Key Facts about the Uninsured Population”). This growth far outstrips wage growth during the same time. 31 states, and the District of Columbia, have expanded Medicaid to adults that make 138% of Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (“Key Facts about the Uninsured Population”). 138% of the FPL is $33,498 in 2017 (“Federal Poverty Guidelines”). The national average cost of living for a family of four, with two parents and two children, is $48,778 (Lin and Bernstein). That amount is a difference of over $15,000 a year. A plethora of uninsured adults earn too much money to receive Medicaid assistance and too little money to afford insurance through the