Universal Healthcare

Recently a conservative friend asked me whether having universal healthcare would negatively impact America's place as a world leader in medical technology. The point of the question was to suggest that if that was the case then it was a good reason not to implement such a system.

We cannot say that implementing full-access healthcare would not eventually knock America down to, 2nd or 3rd in the world, but in many ways it's beside the point. We should ask ourselves if the measure of a system is solely what occurs at the 'top end'? After all, America has more millionaires than any other nation, but it also has greater levels of poverty than any other industrial power.

Many would argue that the advances brought about by American medical research have benefited not just all Americans, but millions of others around the world. Were we to slow that progress down, we would find our efforts in fighting disease hampered by lack of funds.

This is a misleading argument. America may produce a large number of the world's medical breakthroughs but it is not the only nation making drugs and performing operations. Moreover, it is highly debatable whether all Americans, let alone the rest of the world, sees tangible benefits from this research. More than 40 million Americans have to wait years or even decades for the benefits of this research to trickle down to them, if it ever does.

This, of course, is the 'trickle-down' theory of market capitalism and the evidence of the last few decades proves it to be false.

There seems to be something profoundly selfish in rating a society only by the successes and luxuries of the wealthy. Is it more important to be Number One than to protect the health of all Americans? Frankly that sounds more like Number Two.