Healthcare Reform on the Line - Who Will Step Up to the Plate?

With the presidential race in full swing, many Americans are beginning to do the research on candidates, gathering up all the useful information they can find, to make an informed decision on who to vote for.  With this comes the many hot topics are key in voters determining who they want as the next president. One topic that can in some way concern us future biomedical engineers is the idea of universal health care, otherwise known in this country as the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The five remaining candidates have their own opinions about this act, and some of them may or may not surprise you.

On the Democratic side, we have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator from Vermont Bernie Sander. Both of these candidates have said over and over again that they do support the Affordable Care Act. They believe that there are more provisions that will be enacted for it to cover more citizens and to create what has been strived for, for so long; government-ensured universal healthcare for all.

On the Republican side, we have Senator from Texas Ted Cruz, Governor of Ohio John Kasich, and businessman Donald Trump. All three of these candidates have said publicly that they do not stand with the Affordable Care Act, and plan on revoking the plan once he becomes President. As a whole, they have the idea of simplifying the healthcare system to make it easier for all Americans to access it, but at the same time bring the idea of healthcare to the state level, taking government control away. All candidates believe that this method will bring more options for customers, while also lowering costs across all boards.

On a very personal note, I feel as though more credit should be given to the Democratic side of the race on this topic. The idea of universal healthcare has been implemented in various developed countries including Sweden, Denmark, and Cuba. Members of both the Democratic and Republican party have been attempting to pass universal healthcare legislation laws for decades now, including some of our current presidential candidates. The idea is simple now; with a piece of legislative already in place (the Affordable Care Act), now is the time to clean it up, add provisions to lower costs, and allow access to any plan to become even easier and simpler than what it is now. Years have been spent trying to create American universal healthcare, formatted to our country. To destroy it and start all over again would be a waste of financial resources and time. 

From a biomedical engineering perspective, the idea of universal healthcare would benefit us engineers because it would open up more opportunity for the products we engineer to reach a wider scope of people in a faster period of time. With legislation already in place, our products are already reaching more people. With a revamped and much more “universal” update to the act, our products would reach virtually everyone. This idea is thinking ahead for us as engineers and for the citizens of this country and their wellbeing, and is something that I believe we should support.