This post is solely going to be based on my opinion, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on health care, including care for mental health.
In the United States, there has been a lot of conversation about “health care for all” or “Medicare for all”, and, although I don’t know all of the details surrounding all of those ideas, I believe that health care is a right for everyone, regardless of a person’s ability to pay. Now, having made that general statement, there are some caveats that I would include, and that makes this a lot harder. While I think everyone has a right to health care, in my mind that includes certain services and not the extras. For example, everyone should be treated for a broken bone. However, I do not think that a breast enlargement should be counted as health care. But therein lies the difficulty – what I consider essential and nonessential no doubt varies from many others. How would we ever agree on what services everyone gets no matter what the circumstances? Definitely not an easy road to travel.
When it comes to mental health care, I no doubt would be a lot more generous on what is considered essential, because I have seen first-hand how the current health care system can fail so many people with mental illness. Mental health is just as important as physical health, and it needs to be considered essential care for anyone in my opinion. But, again, how do we decide what is available to everyone?
Overall, health care is not an easy topic, but in general my opinion is that to some extent it is a basic human right. Although money will most likely always be an issue, from a moral and human standpoint I do not see how we can refuse to help our other fellow humans stay healthy. We need to think about what is the right thing to do, and taking care of others is very high on the list.