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Writing Assignment Two
It has been difficult for countries, particularly the United States, to adopt universal healthcare due to ambiguity in the healthcare system, high medical expenses, and discrimination. Ambiguity often arises because of the persistent conflict and divergence between healthcare facilities and insurance providers that complicate patients’ ability to pay for their medical expenses by filing insurance claims despite paying excessively high premiums. High medical costs also limit patients from accessing appropriate and adequate medical services due to costly prognosis procedures and medications. Moreover, discrimination based on socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and age instigate disproportional provision of healthcare services to certain patients because of partial assumptions about their racial identity, living standards, and occupation. The prevalent problems of ambiguity created a tug of war and conflict between insurance companies and healthcare facilities over insurance claims which puts patients in a precarious position where they have to find alternative means to pay their medical expenses because insurance providers are unwilling to pay their medical bills. Modernity was instrumental in dictating the emergence and development of ambiguity in the healthcare system since it prompted the creation of divergent and complex systems and principles that individuals must follow to get the services and resources they need. High medical expenses are likely to continue rising because of the selfish profit motives of healthcare professionals and drug manufacturers. The high cost often forces patients to avoid seeking healthcare and forego regular examinations, preventive therapy, and care, leading to adverse health outcomes and lastly discrimination in the healthcare system trace their development from the historical principles of enlightenment, modernity, and capitalism. These principles embody the significance of self-reliance and economic prosperity, leading to disproportional access and allocation of essential healthcare services.
Ambiguity
The tug of war and conflict between insurance companies and healthcare facilities over insurance claims puts patients in a precarious position where they have to find alternative means to pay their medical expenses because insurance providers are unwilling to pay their medical bills. Insurance companies often create procedural red tape and challenging hurdles that complicate patients’ ability to get the funds they need after filling a claim despite consistent premium payment. Modernity was instrumental in dictating the emergence and development of ambiguity in the healthcare system since it prompted the creation of divergent and complex systems and principles that individuals must follow to get the services and resources they need. People had to follow a particular set of rules and procedures to get any essential amenities they require from the government, hospitals, or schools under the presumption that it would ensure order and equality. Modernity instigated a drastic scientific revolution, compelling people to alter their knowledge foundation and acknowledge that old approaches were incapable of resolving current issues (Scientific Revolutions, 5.2). The scientific revolution exemplified a new optimism that people could understand and change the world. Scientific changes persuaded people that they could master and modify societal norms to suit their needs and interests.
The scientific revolution was a good platform for people to dispute and confront religious authorities and create unique beliefs and assumptions by establishing independent systems, truths, and knowledge. The revolution enlightened people, allowing them to critique and question existing structures and approaches, especially the delivery of healthcare services to the citizenry. Enlightenment encouraged people to think for themselves and use their intellect to solve issues, undermining the validity of old political structures, belief systems, and knowledge by exposing their misconceptions and weaknesses (Enlightenment and Intellectual Independence, 5.4). Enlightenment persuaded people to think about any issue of interest and apply all their intellectual tools to inquire, challenge old ideologies, and envision new opportunities.
Enlightenment also sought to establish universalism that would compel all humans to follow the same laws to establish a collective human nature. Enlighteners believed that since administrative procedures were susceptible to reform and change, politics could operate under new rules (Enlightenment and Political Reform: Montesquieu, 5.6). Enlightenment created a new middle-class sociocultural philosophy founded on individualism, threatening the existing societal order and traditional regimes. Although the enlightenment facilitated administrative reforms, it prompted critical and systematic thinking that led to oppression. People had to change their behavior to align with existing rules and expectations after internalizing the rationality that comes with constant observation and scrutiny.
High Medical Costs
Healthcare has become expensive due to the rising cost of medication and prognosis procedures. Medical expenses are likely to continue rising because of the selfish profit motives of healthcare professionals and drug manufacturers. The high cost often forces patients to avoid seeking healthcare and forego regular examinations, preventive therapy, and care, leading to adverse health outcomes. The rising cost is attributable to the historical adoption of distinctive economic structures to guarantee growth and prosperity. It is particularly linked to implementing the capitalist economic system that embodies the concept of individual profit purposes and encourages exchanges among consumers and manufacturers through a market framework (Capitalism, 7.2). Adam Smith’s invisible guiding hand hypothesis offered a perspective that implies that workplaces should abide by the rules of demand and supply, where market forces create a market for employees and dictate earnings. Capitalism created a new approach to structuring the economy by envisioning an autonomous system with few restrictions to lucrative interactions. Capitalism envisioned progressive economic advancement that would drastically alter people’s perspectives about the economy and wealth generation. Capitalism also endorsed an economic insurgence that would change people’s understanding of economic modification.
The rising healthcare cost is also attributable to the rapid industrial revolution that prompted the incorporation of revolutionary economic principles, labor frameworks, contemporary technology, and the work landscape. Industrialization replaced human labor, cultural, and abstract systems with equipment and mass commodity production. The swift industrial revolution changed people’s working approach, creating new social structures and classes, including a rich and influential middle class. Industrialization started in the mid-eighteenth century and formed a suitable basis for enlightenment and science to promote Smith’s capitalism hypothesis (Industrialization, 7.3). It altered people’s living standards by persuading them to change from a farming community to a metropolitan one.
Industrialization also created a factory system in society that discontinued job repetition, employees’ working at their own pace, and rationalization in the manufacturing system to restrict workers from repeating the same task. The new factory system necessitated a methodical workforce and the development of a type of individual that wakes up on time, arrives at a particular location and time, and has the energy to repeat the same task for a long time without sick days, breaks, or vacations (Change in the Experience of Work, 7.6). Industrialization benefitted nations by expanding the middle class, facilitating the production of industrial-made goods, and creating wealth reservoirs. However, industrialization also created unskilled labor forces, limited earnings, housing shortages, the emergence of slum settlements, and health problems due to ecological pollution.
Discrimination
Discrimination is also a prevalent problem in the healthcare system that limits individuals from accessing the medical care they need because of bias and disproportional assumptions about their ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and beliefs. Ethnicity is a predominant cause of discrimination in the healthcare system since it promotes the historical concept that divergent cultures and races have a biological definition based on nineteenth-century evolution hypotheses (Darwin and Biological Expectations of Difference, 8.2). Charles Darwin claimed that a population undergoes a natural selection framework to accomplish specific hereditary volatility to guarantee survival, leading to overpopulation. Herbert Spencer expounded on Darwin’s hypothesis by arguing that imperialism is a biological requirement and form of survival that gains validity through the notion that races resemble distinctive species.
Evolutionists merged enlightenment hypotheses about racial disparity to conceptualize new biological development theories. Unfortunately, grounding biology in a racial disparity theory persuaded people to embrace and promote white supremacy by disenfranchising and stigmatizing minorities. White settlers and rulers used the eugenics principle to promote and apply the concepts of biology, evolution, and race. Eugenics assumes that human action can help manipulate and push evolution (Eugenics, 8.3). Eugenics also assumes that individuals can preserve, eradicate, and choose certain traits and characteristics from a specific population. The wealthy and powerful social class subjected minorities to several eugenics initiatives, including sterilization and genealogical experiments to ensure racial separation and demonstrate that it is possible to eliminate certain negative hereditary behaviors.
Enlightenment contributed to the current state of inequality and discrimination by promoting systematizing racism. Whites implemented discriminatory policies and laws that gave them a disproportional advantage over minorities. For instance, the stringent conditions of the 1890 European treaty forbid Africans from purchasing weapons, creating an unfair situation where Europeans could discriminately shoot and kill many Asians and Africans in a short time using Hiram Maxim’s newly invented and powerful machine gun (Medicine and Warfare, 8.6). Military, transportation, and communication advancements enabled Europeans to instigate radical and drastic colonization of Asian and African territories. Europeans also protected themselves from potent ailments by inventing effective medicines to guarantee success in their conquest. Whites assumed they had an innate responsibility and natural ordination to Christianize, modernize, and educate people in other sections of the world.
Ambiguity traces its development from the chronological scientific revolution that enlightened people to critique existing frameworks and change their knowledge foundation to establish independent structures that promote their interests. People had to change their behavior to align with the new societal demands and rules. Meanwhile, the high medical expenses are attributable to the adoption of capitalism that prioritizes personal profit motives and respects demand and supply rules. The escalating healthcare cost is also attributable to the drastic industrial revolution that focused on the growing middle class, leading to environmental pollution, housing shortages, and low wages. In contrast, discrimination traces its origin to varying evolution hypotheses emphasizing imperialism and natural selection. Evolutionists used biology to create racial disparity theories allowing whites to subject minorities to discriminatory eugenics experiments to guarantee racial separation and safeguard their superiority. Whites also adopted prejudicial laws enabling them to control, conquer, and manipulate Africans and Asians. Making universal healthcare a reality remains a pipe dream in the U.S. due to the obstacles of high medical costs, ambiguity, and discrimination in the healthcare system.