The eligibility rules by themselves can not give room for the universal healthcare system to work in the United States, leave alone benefiting the citizens. Unless they are redesigned to offer need-based coverage rather than non-need based coverage like the one offered by the Medicare, the system can never be effective. Furthermore, universal coverage in the United Sates would be opposed by insurance stakeholders as it would mean change from the private to public insurance.
In United States it is believed that the democratic government, protestant work ethics, individual freedoms and free market maintains the health insurance tied to employment, and this is actually not the case as the free market ideals have no influence to the healthcare operations. Good medical care and access to healthcare does not guarantee quality healthcare.
The Swedish healthcare system can be perfectly replicated in the United States but this can not guarantee similar results. At the current health state of the United States, its annual budget on healthcare, know-how and technological potential, the government, medical practitioners and citizens in the United State should not be talking about the access to healthcare as the major issue.
They need to understand that access to healthcare is just the capacity to fund the healthcare and the most important is the quality of healthcare provided that is constantly degraded by the universal healthcare system as the quality is likely to reduce because the limited healthcare resources will be distributed over a large population. Social unity has never been a priority in America as they invest greatly on their own future while expecting others to sort themselves economically.
This can never give room for a universal healthcare system that is driven by social forces. Furthermore, since Americans prefer getting social services from the private facilities rather than paying high taxes to fund the government which they do not utilized fully. With such thoughts and the knowledge that even with the current national healthcare system they get taxed, question on the amount of taxes that can be levied from the citizens to fund an effective universal coverage lingers in the minds of the citizens increasing their negative stance.
With the cultural and historical traditions that presents significantly huge obstacles in attempts to get an universal coverage in the United States the proposed universal healthcare will never be established United States and if it happens to be established it will not work.
Work cited list
Altman, D, Rosenbaum, D, Brodie, M. , James, M. , Blendon, R. , Benson, M. , and Flournoy, R. National survey on healthcare: a joint study conducted by National Public Radio, , Kaiser Family Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University, June, 2002, retrieved from http://www.kff. org/content/2002/20020605a/ Bovberg, Randall and Ullman , Frank. ‘‘
Health insurance and health access: reengineering local safety nets. Legal Medicine Journal 22 ( 2001): 247-262. Chambers, Donald. Social programs a and social policy: a method for the practical public policy analyst (3rd edtn). Allyn & Bacon, Boston. Dye, Thomas. Understanding public policy (9th edtn), New Jersey: Prentice Hall.