Ensuring Free and Accessible Healthcare: A Government Obligation?

This essay delves into the critical question of whether governments should be obligated to ensure free and accessible healthcare for all citizens, irrespective of their age or health status. The introduction highlights the importance of healthcare and its impact on societal well-being, emphasizing the potential for financial barriers to access. The essay argues in favor of free healthcare, citing the potential for improved health outcomes, especially among those with lower socioeconomic status, and addresses the need to eliminate disparities. It also acknowledges the counter-arguments for healthcare being paid, discussing the need for health insurance to help manage government budgets and ensure sustainability. The essay provides recommendations, such as tax-funded healthcare systems and the need for more healthcare professionals, and concludes by reiterating the importance of government intervention in ensuring universal health coverage and reducing health disparities.

Running head: ESSAY
Should governments be obliged to ensure that free, accessible healthcare is available to all
citizens, irrespective of age or health status?
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ESSAY
Introduction- Healthcare is extremely essential to build the environment. It is an
umbrella term that refers to the improvement and maintenance of health through the effective
diagnosis, prevention, and management of injury, illness, mental or physical impairment.
People might not be able to cover their expenses to pay doctors or nurses, who are providing
them assistance in their health, owing to their financial situation (Siekman & Hilger, 2018).
Time and again access to healthcare has been found to fluctuate across different nations and
communities and are largely influenced by economic and social conditions of the people, in
addition to the existing health policies of the individual states (Goodman et al., 2017).
Furthermore, poorer people also require free healthcare and it is the duty of the government
to provide it. This essay will argue that healthcare has to be free and accessible to all people,
regardless of their health status. The essay will initially provide background information on
the underlying factors that make it necessary to create provisions for free healthcare services.
In the succeeding sections, the essay will illustrate why healthcare needs to be free, why
should healthcare be paid, and what the key recommendations are for making health services
accessible and free for all citizens.
Background- There are several reasons for healthcare to be free. The strategic aim of
free healthcare facilities and amenities is to guarantee that all people can utilise the health
services that are present, without any potential risk of monetary ruin or impoverishment,
notwithstanding their socio-economic condition. Free and easily accessible healthcare service
also help in the elimination of official user fees that are generally procured from the patients
at the time of service, for a range of illnesses (Masiye, Kaonga & Kirigia, 2016).
Furthermore, with several people all around the world being uninsured, it has been found that
numerous people die each year, due to lack of access to healthcare facilities, owing to high
costs. In other words, presence of free healthcare services is also imperative since it would
guarantee that all people are able to gain access to necessary diagnostic tools, medications

2ESSAY
and curative procedures. This in turn is supported by Simonsen, Hertzum and Scheuer (2018)
who stated that the domain of healthcare is extremely complex, highly specialised, and
subjected to huge technology investments. Thus, with the aim of improving the health and
wellbeing of patients, there is a need for all government to make healthcare services free and
accessible. The term greater inequality in health and social care, does not necessarily refer to
poverty. Poverty and poor health status do often go hand-in-hand. Nonetheless, evidences
from epidemiological research suggest that great levels of inequality are responsible for a
negative impact on the health outcomes of even the prosperous, predominantly because,
disparity decreases social unity, a dynamic that results in the onset of more fear, stress, and
insecurity for every person.
Healthcare has to be free- Presence of free healthcare can exert an amazing control
over health of all citizens across the globe. There is mounting evidence for the fact that poor
socioeconomic status (SES) creates an impact on the health outcomes, by governing the
extent and type of healthcare services that people receive. It has often been reported that in
developing and underdeveloped nations, people belonging to low SES demonstrate an
increased likelihood of developing worsened health outcomes, reduced life expectancy, and
generally suffer from a plethora of chronic diseases, in comparison to their higher SES
counterparts (Adeyanju, Tubeuf & Ensor, 2017). Furthermore, they are also subjected to less
number of diagnostic tests and medicines for several illnesses and injuries, owing to the
limited access that they have to health services due to low coverage and high costs. It has
been supported by Smedley, Stith, Nelson, Board on Health Sciences Policy, Institute of
Medicine and Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in
Health Care (2014) that Somalia is one of the poorest nations, and also demonstrates a
deterioration in health status of its residents, comparable to other nations like Sudan, Nigeria,
and Liberia. Furthermore, the researchers also elaborated on the fact that resident healthcare

3ESSAY
professionals often considered patients from East Africa different from Asians and African
Americans, which in turn made them demonstrate stereotypic behaviour (Yaya, Bishwajit &
Shah, 2016). The need of free healthcare services, regardless of health status can also be
accredited to the fact that ethnic or racial differences in delivery of healthcare often increases
the tendency of the minorities to receive poorer care compared to the non-minorities, even if
several access-related factors, such as, income and insurance status are controlled.
Furthermore, the underlying factors that contribute to ethnic and racial healthcare disparities
encompass diversity in geography, communication difficulties between provider and patient,
absence of access to suitable health coverage, provider stereotyping, cultural barriers, and
absence of access to the providers (Mezmur, Navaneetham, Letamo & Bariagaber, 2017).
Thus, it can be stated that presence of huge disparities in healthcare system contribute to
deterioration in health outcomes of the public that calls for the need of providing universal
health coverage. Based on results from surveys conducted in 2009 to 2015, participating
nations that have the lowermost levels of economic disparity (Central Europe and
Scandinavian republics), demonstrated the lowest rate of heart failure, (10.9 per 100 person-
years). Furthermore, republics that demonstrate intermediate levels of income inequality
(Australia, North America, and India) reported a higher rate (11.7 per 100 person-years),
while nations with highest inequality level reported the maximum heart failure rates (13.7 per
100 person-years) (Inequality.org, 2019).
Healthcare needs to be paid- The government must take efforts to encourage people
for gaining healthcare insurance in order to build the health economy. Universal healthcare
system is based on the delivery of quality medical services to the public, notwithstanding
their financial position, and capability to pay for the services. Though making healthcare
facilities free for all people across the nations in imperative to ensure enhanced health
outcomes, it generally forces the government and other healthy individuals to pay for the

4ESSAY
medical care costs of the patients who belong to low SES (Morgan, Ensor & Waters, 2016).
This in turn makes the healthcare costs of the nation exceed the government budget. This
calls for the need of making people get a health insurance. The primary benefit of such
insurance and coverage is that it would cover all kinds of expenses that are made towards the
consultation fees of the physicians, medical tests, hospitalisation costs, transportation
charges, and post-hospitalisation recuperation costs (Burke et al., 2016). Furthermore, it
would help the government keep a track on the healthcare budget. According to Twum, Qi,
Aurelie and Xu (2018) on introducing a free maternal health programmed that was affiliated
to the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana, women who had health insurance
demonstrated a 39.5 times increased likelihood of antenatal care visits, in comparison to
those without any health insurance. Based on the positive correlation between health
insurance and postnatal care access, the findings suggested that accessibility and availability
of healthcare resources can be guaranteed through health coverage and insurances.
Nonkhuntod and Yu (2018) also suggested that in recent years, Thailand has demonstrated a
striking performance in delivery of healthcare, as assessed by the utilization rate. They
highlighted that healthcare transformation can eliminate obstructions to accessing healthcare
services, particularly for the elderly and poor residing in remote and rural regions. In
addition, while considering the demand side, healthcare monetary risk protection can
eliminate financial barriers to reception of medical services, thus calling for the need of
implementing appropriate healthcare policies.
Recommendations- The best way to provide accessible and free healthcare services is
by paying taxes to the government. Under circumstance when the residents of a nation pay
health insurance premiums they are eligible for tax benefits for several years under insurance
coverage. In addition, there is a need for the nations to develop a novel, workable and
thoroughgoing solution for addressing the costs of health facilities (Trish & Herring, 2015).

5ESSAY
This in turn would require hiring more number of healthcare professionals, in addition to
utilising more medical facilities and hospitals. Furthermore, the primary benefit of paying for
taxes is that it would guarantee that all people in the community are able to enjoy the health
services that are offered by the government in a stable and safe environment. In other words,
it would act as an effective way of providing health infrastructure and amenities to a wider
population (Borden & Nallamothu, 2018). While working towards free and accessible
healthcare system, it is generally anticipated that the nation will be able to reduce
administration costs, and there would not be any kind of competition under one particular
administration (Kaestner & Lubotsky, 2016). Thus, this would result in a considerable
decrease in the costs of medical care. Presently, there are several replications in claims and
dealings owing to the presence of dissimilar health plans. Paying taxes would save time for
healthcare rights to be processed, and can also be administered in a cost-effective method.
Conclusion- The government plays an important role in controlling the delivery of
healthcare services to all people. There is adequate evidence of the fact that social factors,
particularly income level and ethnicity creates a marked influence on the health status of an
individual. In addition, there exist wide disparities between the health status of people who
belong to diverse social groups. Hence, with the aim of lowering this disparity, and
increasing health outcomes of the residents, all nations must take efforts to make healthcare
free and accessible. Moreover, healthcare is predictably regarded as an imperative factor in
endorsing the over-all mental and physical health and wellbeing of individuals all across the
globe. However, while offering free treatment to all, the entire expenditure have to be borne
by the government. Providing universal coverage, obtaining tax from the residents, and
preventing stereotypic behaviour while treating diverse population will play an important step
in addressing this issue.

6ESSAY
References
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7ESSAY
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