With regard to the current upward trend in thea verage age of most societies, it has been a mattero f debate whether governments should be heldr esponsible for funding the health care of citizens, or each individual has to pay for it alone. This essay aims to analyze both views. I, however, side with the latter perspective.
On the one hand, plenty ofcommentators hold the view that what officials should do is support the retired since a considerable number of them are living below the poverty line; therefore, they could not afford medical care. As a case in point, had it not been for the subsidies provided by the British government in 2020, approximately one-third of the elderly would never have been able to receive medical treatments.
On the other hand, numerouseconomists subscribe to the idea that having drained a nation of its wealth, politicians should refrain from implementing further measures to subsidize public health, which implies that the responsibility of paying for health protection falls upon people themselves. In order to cast light on the matter, it is anticipated that by the next year, roughly 500 billion dollars will have been required for health services in the US, which per se would put a heavy burden on the government if it were to be in charge of covering the expenditure entirely.
By way of conclusion, considering the recent growth in the proportion of seniors throughout the world, despite the fact that a vast majority of activists are of the view that governments have to shoulder the burden of the accelerating health care costs – be it via welfare benefits or not – I believe that it is imperative that citizens allocate money for medical services.