Do people 'deserve' universal health care?

[lucy]

I find the question whether there should be universal health care system available completely redundant. The legitimate question is which system of it works best for each country, but everyone has the right to decent health care. If you think that the worth of a human life is measured by their earning power, I have only two things to say to you 1) You are going to burn in Hell, and 2) Vive le socialisme!

Exactly my feelings. Especially in a country like America, which often displays itself as the spearhead of civilization (at least that's the impression i sometimes get in Europe), that shouldn't be a question. There are different ways to provide all people with health care, so far noone has proven to be the perfect one.

However, spending almost 15% of the gross national product on health care, how America does, and leaving out a substantial part of the population seems to be a very bad deal.
Those 15% are, btw, by far the highest percentage worldwide, second is Switzerland with about 13% of the gnp.

The discussion that needs to be led is not IF everybody should have access to health care, but WHAT should be paid for. Because obviously it won't be possible to pay everything medically possible for everybody. And even less so in the future, with life extectancy in most of the countries which are members of the OECD (not in America, though, where life expectancy is actually sinking. That's some food for thought too...)

[lucy]

One more thing: There are middle ways between free universal and privately funded health care systems.
In Switzerland, every person pays the same amount for his health insurance. Insurance companies are private enterprises. Poor people get a refund which is paid directly to the insurance company (otherwise it would probably be spent on booze, babes and cars). It works pretty well, however, the costs are on the rise, so there needs to be a strong mechanism to keep people from running to the doctor with every cold, expecting to get the best possible treatment for almost no money.

And as various others have said before me: It's bound to get more expensive with people getting older and with treatments getting more expensive.
My Master works in the research division of a Swiss pharmaceutical company, and according to him in the future drugs will become extremely accurate to deal with a specific health problem, but also extremely expensive.
For example, Roche has built a whole factory in Germany to produce one single drug that is very effective in treating breast cancer. Unfortunately, only about a third of breast cancer victims respond to this drug. I don't remember what he said what a treatment costs on average, but it was more than i earn in two years.
But then again, i'm heavily underpaid and work only part time