The Paper, Dana Hills High School
Dana Point, California
Student newspaper archive · 2019–2021
The Wire
DHHS Football: CIFDHHS Replacing PortablesEternalsGirls Varsity Water PoloMix and Match: COVID Booster ShotsRole Model on TourShould English Class Help Prep Students for Life?Should the Student Parking Lot Have Security Cameras?Taylor Swift’s New Album: Remembered All Too WellTravis Scott: Astroworld DisasterVolunteer FairXC Takes Individual Titles, Qualified to CIFBiden’s Change of PlansFootball Team Back in Action
Opinion

Free Healthcare: Not an Optimal Option

By Kyle Mann School year 2019/20

With healthcare being completely mandatory in California, the expenses have had a lot of people wondering if we should make a change. Recently, there has been discussion on the national level regarding developing a completely free healthcare system. Free healthcare might sound great, but a closer look reveals some flaws in this dream.

One of the cons to a free healthcare system is long wait times to get an appointment to see a doctor or specialist. According to vittana.org, “Some elective procedures may require 9-12 months of waiting before they can be scheduled. In Canada, the wait times to see a specialist can even be long for some patients, with some people waiting almost 40 weeks to see someone for a health concern.”

Canada has a universal healthcare system and wait times could be extremely long here if the United States were to switch to a free universal healthcare system since the population of the U.S. is almost nine times the population of Canada.

Another con of free healthcare would be raised taxes. According to livestrong.com, “Although universal health care is often touted as ‘free,’ it is typically government-run.” This means that taxes would have to be raised to fund doctors and equipment for medical care. This would force healthy people to pay for others’ medical care through taxes, and that might in turn get the wealthy angry since they will have to pay a lot more taxes for others’ care.

Another con would be that if we all had free healthcare, it could possibly limit the new technology that doctors use on patients. There would be an increased drive to keep the cost down, meaning that there would be less funding available to buy and research new technology.

Over an extended amount of time, we could lose even more lives because we wouldn’t be able to treat others without the new technologies. There are both pros and cons to a free healthcare system, but the cons ultimately outweigh the pros.

HealthcarePolitics

Keep reading

Full archive
Opinion · January 30, 2020

2020 Presidential Election Predictions

Mar. 3, 2020 will be a historic day for America. It will be what many call “Super Tuesday,” where 14 states hold their primaries for the 2020 election. It will also be the first election that many seniors, including myself, can vote in.

Opinion · January 15, 2021

Toxic Politics: The Siege of the U.S. Capitol

As Congress had begun to officially count electoral votes on Wednesday, Jan. 5th, with just fifteen days till a new president is to be inaugurated, Americans were shocked by how quickly violence broke out in Washington D.C.

Opinion · September 11, 2020

Separation at the Border: Morals Over Politics

Under the Trump Administration, throughout the past four years, at least 2,654 children have been separated from their families at the Mexican border.

Opinion · April 22, 2020

Is Online Learning as Effective as Face-to-Face Learning?

Many schools across the globe have switched to online learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many have mixed feelings towards the switch to online learning, but is it more or less effective than face-to-face learning?