When you look into healthcare you will quickly realise that it is very far from universal, meaning everyone, everywhere has access to a good standard of healthcare. This is due to a number of reasons, such as remote places not having enough development to build hospitals or healthcare not being free meaning some people cannot afford it. It goes without saying that none of this is good news and it begs the question: why isn’t healthcare universal? Despite the fact the world has enough resources and money to achieve this.

Firstly, some countries simply do not have enough hospitals to care for everyone in their country if they happen to need it. The worst example of this is Costa Rica with 44 hospitals meaning there are only 8.7 hospitals per 1 million people. This would mean that about nine hospitals are responsible for the healthcare of a million people. Even though not everyone is in need of healthcare at all times, we have already seen very recently how a major health threat, Covid-19, can quickly start to cause more people needing healthcare urgently. You may ask how many deaths Costa Rica recorded, given they have the fewest hospitals. Surprisingly, it was only 9.4 thousand which isn’t a lot comparatively. This was due to the country’s location being reasonably far away from where most cases were. But they still treated 860 thousand cases which does show the country’s incredible resilience to withstand a global pandemic.

Other countries have paid healthcare; with the most notable and known example: the USA. On average, a one night stay in a US hospital costs almost $3,000 whilst the average stay in a hospital is almost five days. This would make one hospital trip cost $13,000 which is an incredible amount considering the NHS in the UK being free. While some may argue that health insurance covers that which is paid for by many work establishments, everyone needs to be accounted for. Some do not have such jobs which may be due to multiple reasons. For those who do not have jobs covering health insurance, it would cost between $374- $1,224 depending on the type of healthcare and age. For example someone aged 21 would have health insurance of about $400 per month, whilst someone who’s 60 would have health insurance costing $1,100 per month. Not everyone in the USA can afford this, meaning some people do not pay for it and run the risk of being in life -threatening debt if they  were to have an accident. For these people, debt is scarier than death as they would rather let themselves die than have to live a life of never ending pain.

While most people would simply say healthcare should be universal, it isn’t as simple as getting rid of it. Not all countries can afford to build and run hundreds of hospitals, and others have a strong source of income from it which is used to help the countries’ needs. For now, healthcare will not be universal and there is no confirmation it will ever be. But with developing healthcare, we can hope for more efficient cures and medicine so the world can live without fear of death or debt. Without this, healthcare may never be universal.