Healthcare is broken in America. Millions of Americans do not have health insurance, so they’re kind of screwed if they get sick. Obamacare is not the solution. The two powerful parties in America are both heavily influenced by powerful lobbyists, and they both agree that insurance should remain privatized. They are both wrong.

Obamacare allows health insurance to remain privatized. This allows insurance agencies to provide poor coverage for the same amount. While it lowers the number of uninsured Americans, the insurance is not of good quality. This way, insurance companies continue to be totally about making money, rather than about taking care of sick people.

The wellbeing of citizens is most crucial to a society, next to education. If everybody is poor, sick, or dead, there is no society to speak of. Insurance companies lobbied over a hundred million dollars each year for the past several years to guarantee that nobody in office supports a single­payer healthcare system, which would destroy their industry. Everybody is entitled to health, and the insurance industry cares more about their fat wallets than everybody in the country having access to healthcare. Healthcare is not a commodity and both democrats and republicans refuse to recognize this.

According to Dr. Gerald Friedman, a professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, the US would save $592 billion annually by switching to a single­payer “Medicare for All” system. He also says that 95 percent of all American households would save money. This is in reference to the proposed bill HR 676, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.

If HR 676 were to gain enough support to pass, everybody in the country would have access to the same health care. It covers preventative care, which would keep people from getting so sick that they need to pay for late stage treatment of preventable diseases. This further decreases the overall cost of health care.

Our country spends more on healthcare per person, ­ 17.6 percent of our GDP, ­ than any country in the world. It is crucial that we change our system to fit international standards, both for financial reasons and the wellness of the general public.

sgexner@mavs.coloradomesa.edu