Health care for low income families in the U.S. is a scarcity with 53% of low income citizens reporting to be uninsured according to medhealthinsurance.com. This causes a myriad of problems and difficult decisions for low income people and puts them at a much higher risk of serious illness. Uninsured familes are four times more likely to avoid going to the doctor than in insure families because of the cost and many of those families clame that the emergency room is their primary care center at which the mean cost per visit is $3000. Low income families are much more likely to be diagnosed in the advanced stages of a major disease because they do not get regular check ups. All in all the information that I gathered from medhealthinsurance.com showed me that something should be done to provide regular care to low income families. It could be argued that medical professionals have a moral obligation to help all who are in need because they can and are trained to do so. Money should not be the determining factor of whether a person can receive quality care just like no amount of money is worth a person's life.

Up until now I have been extensively covering the conservative point of view on socialized medicine which is adamantly opposed to it. Now I would like to switch gears so that you have an idea of what the pro-reform arguments are. According to an article that I read recently from the Los Vegas Sun by Cynthi Shiroky all of the problems that the right wing associates with government run health care (rationing care, costing more, coming between patient and doctor, limiting access and treatments, denying or delaying care, and being socialistic) are all problems with the current system, excluding the socialist part. Additionally, the aforementioned problems are false pretenses about the proposed reform which claims to be non-profit, cheap, and efficient. I believe that the biggest pro to this reform is that it would not allow people to have their coverage dropped because of a preexisting or a recently contracted illness. If all these things can be promised and work out as its supporters claim then maybe socialized medicine is the way to go. Sure we would have an increase in taxes but in my opinion there is no exchange rate between dollars and lives.

In an article I recently read by David Gratz on the U.S. News website a very grave prediction is made. Gratzer claims that within ten years of the adoption of a public health care option almost all of the private insurance companies will be run out of business because they will be unable to compete with or pay the taxes in this bill. This is a very dangerous possibility that is at this moment killing thousands of people across the globe because they cannot get competent, if any, care. This possibility must be considered and provisions must be made to ensure that the private option will stay around, otherwise the government will be taking away something near to every American's heart, liberty, and not to mention forcing them into a third world level of health care.

I was reading in the Battalion today and I came across an article titled "Health care bill passes in House" this article was released by the Associated Press and contained an update on the proposed health care bill. As the title suggests the bill was passed by the House of Representatives, but it does not appear that it will make it beyond the Senate. In order to be ratified the bill must gain 60 votes to even be discussed and 120 votes to bypass debate and be put into action. The chances of this bill receiving even 60 votes in the senate are not good. As of now it does not appear that the currently proposed bill will be America's new health care plan and the legislators will be forced to start again to reform health care.

According to newswire.com there is an impending shortage of medical professionals in the next few years due to the increase in age of current physicians and the decrease in students training to go into the medical field. We can also expect a dramatic increase in the number of patients treated in the next few years as the baby boomers turn 65 and older. Something must be done immediately to fix this problem before our health care system collapses because there is no one to treat patients. This is a matter of priorities for the American people and legislators, no matter where you stand on government run health care , before we do anything else we must attract and train many bright young people into the medical field. Otherwise, no matter what system is in effect, the health care of the United States will be unable to treat its citizens. This must be done before we make any changes to the current system because an influx of patients will require more medical professionals so it is only wise to have those professionals available before we absolutely need them for survival.