Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Universal healthcare has become a regular feature of most developed nations around the world. This characteristic, however, does not extend to the United States, where some 28.2 million Americans remain uninsured or underinsured. In the past few years, the US has been on the precipice of major healthcare overhaul which…
Universal healthcare has become a regular feature of most developed nations around the world. This characteristic, however, does not extend to the United States, where some 28.2 million Americans remain uninsured or underinsured. In the past few years, the US has been on the precipice of major healthcare overhaul which has brought the debate on government-sponsored coverage to the forefront of political discourse. This thesis explores what it may mean to establish affordable access to healthcare as a right for all Americans. In doing so, it utilizes rule-utilitarian principles to define and assess the moral obligation of the United States' federal and state governments to provide sufficient coverage to all qualifying individuals within the country. This paper focuses on evaluating the current healthcare system in the United States while concentrating particularly on how its fragmented approach limits its success and longevity. It then offers a cross-comparison with the universal healthcare systems of Canada, France, and Japan, nations that outperform the United States in most healthcare measures such as life expectancy, infant and under-5 mortality, medical costs per capita, and disease prevalence. The free-market criticisms of government-provided coverage and its alternative private-insurance-based approach to healthcare in the US are also deliberated. In light of these considerations, this thesis concludes with a commentary on what healthcare reform could look like for the nation as well as examines how a utilitarian appeal to rights likely makes the best case for adopting universal government-sponsored healthcare coverage in the United States.
