Health care in US explicitly 'luxury', rather than right: report

LOS ANGELES - For many Americans, regular health care is financially out of reach. Health care is explicitly a luxury, rather than a right, said a report of popular science magazine Scientific American.

During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, media outlets, health experts and scholars have explained the COVID-19 vaccine divide in the United States as partisan, educational, racial or socioeconomic. As it stands, the overall US adult vaccination rate has hovered around 65 percent for months now, said the report published on Wednesday.

"But this division may go back to the founding ideals of democracy in the US: Americans simply aren't accustomed to expecting much from their government," said the report.

If preventing further pandemics is truly a goal of the US public health system, then instead of investing in private health care and subsidizing private research for vaccine development, the country should invest in the development of public health systems and develop strategies to include social rights in the principles of its democracy, said the report.

For many Americans, regular health care is financially out of reach. Half of Americans carry medical debt -- and the government has little role in ensuring access to health care, said the report.

"It has been clear for months throughout this pandemic that vaccine acceptance is not only a scientific issue, but also a public health and communication problem," said the report.