What's Wrong with American Health Insurance?

The United States of America is a great country. Few other countries can compete with America in a number of ways, whether it's literacy rate or other educational standards, economic and employment opportunities or luxuries and consumer comforts and goods. America is first-rate in a number of catagories and standards. However, there is one aspect of the United States that is embarrassingly low and behind the times. That is the state of American health insurance.

How did American health insurance get so bad? You would think it wouldn't be. After all, we have more doctors and hospitals working at the highest level throughout the world. And it is true. No other country trains as many highly skilled doctors in as many top notch and advanced medical centers as the United States. The problem with the Americn health insurance industry is precisely that: it's an industry.

Now, this is a capitalist country, so it should come as no surprise that American health insurance is privitized. And, theortically speaking, because American health insurance is privitized, you would think that would mean lower costs, better services and more efficiency. But why isn't that the case? Because one danger of capitalism is monopolies - and I'm not talking about a board game. American health insurance lies in the hands of a couple of massive companies that in turn are controlled by mammoth pharmaceutical corporations. And these corporations are only interested in one thing - and it isn't your health. It's profit.

If you think about it, the fact that American health insurance isn't socialized is really stupid. Let me explain. We all agree that the state should provide certain basic services. These include police protection and fire coverage. In other words, we want the government to help protect us if a fire threatens our lives, but we don't want the government helping if an illness threatens our lives. How does this make any sense? American health insurance should be a civil right, not an expense.

While you and I probably aren't able to help socialize American health insurance directly, there is a power to capitalism that we can use. We can use the so-called consumer vote and vote with our wallet. The monopolies that control American health insurance only have power because we give it to them. If we don't buy their health insurance plans, they're out of business. So go ahead and find independent American health insurance companies. They're out there if you look hard enough. And they might not be perfect or even better, but maybe it'll send a message to all the bigwigs that the system is broken and American health insurance needs to be fixed.