Research Paper On Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege?

Some of the most common complaints from patients about their healthcare services today are that there is a significant absence of customer service, which leaves them with them feeling as though they were being shuffled through the system like a herd of cattle. HMO doctors are typically overworked, overstressed and underpaid, a combination that does not lend itself well to quality medical care. Because these physician are spread so thin, patients' needs can -- and do -- easily slip through the system's cracks until preventive measures no longer work for that particular person. The inability to handle the heavy case load in a timely manner actually ends up costing the system even more money -- and the patient added suffering and frustration -- because medical issues were not handled when they first occurred. "Nearly a third of things we do to patients are not needed. And a third of things they need they don't get" (Schonfeld, 1998, p. 111).
With so many patients stretching the bounds of available healthcare, some agencies have a question: Should healthcare be a right or a privilege? In order to best deal with this question, w...