Universal life care insurance is a globally accepted system to provide quality health care to citizens from all walks of life. It is a system by which basic health care expenses of a person are shared either completely by the government or partially by the government through a financial system of public-private partnership. In simple terms, when a person joins universal life care insurance, he or she will be provided free treatment either in hospitals run by the government or in certain hospitals stipulated by the government or the insurance scheme. Such a system is running efficiently in almost all developed countries in the world, especially in Europe and Asia. One notable exception from this group is United States.

Authorities dealing with health care insurance in United States maintain that there are a number of private companies in United States that provide a variety of health insurance. As a well-known apostle of free market and free economy, the US must provide an unregulated market environment for these companies to engage in a healthy competition so that the consumers will get maximum benefit. They insist that in the health care insurance system in the US, the consumer have a choice in selecting the insurance scheme.

The consumers can compare various insurance schemes and choose the best one according to their view. But many experts feel that the stance of the health care authorities does not take into consideration the situation prevailing at ground level. They argue that for a majority of people health insurance scheme is not their choice. For example, for employees of a private company, the company selects a particular health care insurance scheme and deducts the insurance premium from the salary of the employee. A fresh recruit to the company has no option but to select the insurance scheme of choice of that particular company. So the supposed advantage of insurance schemes of United States starkly reminds people of what Henry Ford, a great icon of capitalism, once said: “The customer can have any color as long as it is black.”

Another advantage of universal health care system is that every citizen of the country will come under a single scheme which will reduce the administrative costs significantly. A prominent health agency in United States, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, pointed out several hidden costs in the present health insurance schemes, which ultimately decrease the quality of the health care and create further problems. Therefore, the institute has demanded for a universal health care insurance scheme in United States by 2010. In the present scenario, a person may not avail health care for certain health conditions because the insurance scheme he or she can afford does not support that kind of medical treatment. But every citizen of the country would benefit if a universal health care insurance scheme is put in place.

By: Ian Pennington