Every person in the world will one day become sick from old age; they will be in a car, or machine, or labor accident. And because of this, at some point, they will need to go to a doctor sooner or later. Sadly, as many of us have experienced in our lives, that isn’t financially an option for many people, and in 2018 a study done by Harvard medical school found that approximately 8 million deaths could have been prevented had those in need of treatment actually gotten it.

The reason for hem not seeking treatment is, of course, the price of said treatment in America. A single hospital stay will cost an average of $10,000 for the average American, according to business insider. This is more than the price of many used cars, and with a bill that high it’s no wonder that many people choose to simply not go. That $10,000 bill is worth almost two months the average monthly salary in America of about $3,400/month (CNBC). Meaning that if a person chooses to go to the hospital for a life-threatening condition, they will be in debt for many months from that stay. Alternatively, they can try to push through being sick, and be able to feed their kids, pay their bills, and try to pay off any of the other mountains of debt they have, a mortgage, credit cards, student loans; going to the hospital is just something which many people in America simply cannot afford.

But what about insurance, right? If someone has medical insurance, surely they need not worry about having to go to the hospital, right? Sadly, health insurance isn’t on the cards for many Americans either. $1,168 is the average amount of money that someone will have to pay a month in premiums (premiums being the cost per month to have insurance, not including what you will pay out of pocket at the door), as determined by eHeathInsurance Services in September 2018. This alone is almost a third of the average monthly salary for Americans. Try to tack that onto the price of rent $1.400/month, then hardly even $1,000 would be left for any other expenses such as food, power, internet, clothes, or anything else a person might need in a given month. So in a country where the choice for many Americans comes down to feeding themselves and their kids or paying for health insurance? That person is far more likely to choose to put off getting that insurance for as long as humanly possible.

Currently, the most popular solution to this problem is what’s knows as a single-payer healthcare system, commonly referred to by politicians as Medicare for all. Essentially, what this boils down to is that the government becomes the primary insurer for the country as opposed to various private companies, which is how healthcare works in almost all first world countries. This idea comes in a few different forms. One of the most popular is that in which the government insures all people, and what had previously been insurance premiums gets added to taxes, in a significantly smaller amount that it currently is. Another would be a spin on this, where instead of everyone being automatically being covered, people ‘buy into’ the current Medicare system (the biggest difference from now being that everyone has the option, not simply those over 65).

The biggest argument against Medicare for all is, of course, the price tag of the proposal. The most conservative estimates put the cost of the plan at $28 Trillion dollars over the next ten years, or around 2.8 a year. Admittedly, yes, this is a lot of money. It is even compared to the 1.1 trillion we spent in 2018. However, it must be taken into consideration that the bill would include a not insubstantial tax increase to cover it. Meaning that, yes, Americans will have to pay more in taxes. But the increase in the tax bill of the average American should not be even remotely close to the current price of premiums. Meaning that while the price tag for the federal government may be higher, the burden on the American people will be much less.

The decision on whether or not this is the change America needs to fix our costly healthcare is one of the most important ones up for debate in the upcoming presidential elections and is why there are so many democratic nominees, all with varying opinions on the subject. We need a change, that is a fact, the issue comes up with how exactly we fix it. Medicare for all seems to be the best option for all involved as of now, and sadly, the only thing teens can do is be informed on the issues and speak out about them.

“How Much Does Health Insurance Cost Without a Subsidy?” EHealth Insurance Resource Center, 20 Mar. 2019.

Michaels, Matthew. “The 35 Most Expensive Reasons You Might Have to Visit a Hospital in the US - and How Much It Costs If You Do.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 1 Mar. 2018.

“Preventable Deaths from Lack of High-Quality Medical Care Cost Trillions.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 4 June 2018.

Emmiemartin. “Here's How Much the Average American Earns at Every Age.” CNBC, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2017.

Layne, Rachel. “U.S. Housing Rents Hit Record-High Average of $1,405 per Month.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 6 July 2018.

Hamel, Liz, et al. “The Burden of Medical Debt: Results from the Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times Medical Bills Survey - Section 3: Consequences of Medical Bill Problems.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 12 Apr. 2016.