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The United States stands unique in one respect: Out of all the developed nations in the world, we’re the only one that fails to guarantee access to healthcare as a right to all citizens. Considering that the U.S. boasts about being the richest nation on earth, this fact should be a national embarrassment.

According to one Harvard study, 45,000 Americans die each year due to lack of access to affordable healthcare. It’s well past time that the U.S. joins the rest of the industrialized world by moving toward a single-payer healthcare model.

Sadly, the current Trump administration is not just loathe to move in this direction — they've done just the opposite. According to the Congressional Budget Office, with the repeal of the individual mandate under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, 23 million Americans will lose their current insurance coverage, as soaring prices will make it too expensive. It’s up to the Democratic party to get behind a single-payer proposal and follow through with it, especially with midterms upon us and the fact that 81 percent of Democrats support a single-payer model.

How the Current Healthcare Model in the United States Fails Our Citizens

The current healthcare system practiced by the United States is the private insurance model. In this type of healthcare system, also known as the out-of-pocket model, those who are fortunate enough to be able to afford private insurance or pay out of pocket for health insurance have access to care. The same goes for those lucky enough to have coverage through their employer.

For those who cannot afford insurance or doctor's visits and whose employers do not offer insurance, access to healthcare is all too often out of reach due to ever-rising costs. And the lack of access doesn't only happen to the poorest among us. Often, it's middle-class workers whose jobs don't offer insurance who get left out in the cold in America. For example, Ryan, a young teacher, fell and badly injured his knee. Lacking insurance, it wasn't until he spent a stint studying abroad in Chile that he got proper medical care and physical therapy.

Not only does the private insurance model inflate costs due to the profit motive inherent in such a system, but it also limits individual freedom and choice. For example, many employees find themselves forced to remain in a toxic work environment because they can't afford to lose their health insurance.

Even more nefariously, partners in an abusive spousal relationship often find themselves having to choose between staying in an abusive relationship to keep their health insurance or taking their chances that they’ll remain healthy enough to make do without it. And as many abuse survivors require both physical and mental health care to recover from years or even decades of abuse, this reliance on private insurance creates a Catch 22, especially for those with chronic illnesses: Will staying or leaving give them a better chance of staying alive?

What Is a Single-Payer Plan and How Does It Work?

Under a single-payer plan, a public governmental agency would organize healthcare financing. However, the actual care itself would remain in the hands of private physicians and hospitals. Funding would be provided through a governmental fund that everyone pays into. Because a single-payer system eliminates the profit motive behind healthcare, it thus eliminates the need for marketing.

Democrats have multiple countries and models to look at to determine what form of single-payer care would work best in the U.S. There are three types of healthcare systems that cover all citizens: the Breckenridge Model, the Bismarck Model and the National Health Insurance model.

Of all the systems of universal coverage established in the world today, the National Health Insurance Model would likely do the most to help ease the transition from our current private insurance model. Such a model is similar to the healthcare systems in place in Canada and Taiwan. Citizens would pay into a governmental fund for their care. They would then be able to choose their own private doctors and hospitals.

Because the profit motive is eliminated when health insurance falls under government control, costs can be cut significantly. For example, there’s no need for insurance companies to invest in marketing, which can make up 20 percent or more of a private insurer's budget. Likewise, since the government can negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, costs for prescription drugs would also plummet. This difference is the reason so many Americans choose to buy their current drugs from Canada if they're able to do so.

Moving Forward With a Practical Plan to Cover All Americans

Ironically enough, the United States already has a single-payer system in place and has for many decades. Our current Medicare system is one. Employees pay 1.45 percent of their paycheck into the system, and in return, when they turn 65, they receive health insurance to cover them in their golden years.

The difference in the United States is that access to this coverage is limited by class. Unless an individual is aged 65 or older, they cannot avail themselves of it. They pay into it but reap no benefits. This process does nothing to help the millions who suffer from chronic illnesses in their younger years, nor does it do a thing to prevent something as simple as a car accident from ending in bankruptcy.

For Democrats to move forward with a single-payer system in America, therefore, they should avoid re-inventing the wheel and instead expand the current Medicare system to cover all Americans regardless of age. Such a plan, such as the Medicare-for-All plan introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, would simply build upon a system that has been proven to work not only here but also in other countries as well. Finally, no American would be left to die simply because they couldn’t afford care.

*(Image credit: Backbone Campaign/ flickr)