Dear Mr. Trump,

My name is Dounia Ouzidane and I am 12 years old. I am writing to you because, as you may know, there are many issues that are present in the United States and health care is a big one of those problems. An issue within health care is the pricing of it, from prescription drugs to hospital care and how the United States prices these items compared to other developed countries, and I would like to talk to you about how much this issue really is affecting people in the United States.

Health care in the U.S. costs way too much not just compared to other countries, but for the people paying for it. Since the 2000’s, health care prices have been going up. The expenditure per person in America is about $9,500. The total expenditures for the entire nation is about 3 trillion dollars. If you compare the prices of health care to the price of health care in other countries, the difference is extremely big. The prices for hospital and physician services and pharmaceuticals in the United States costs thousands of dollars more than in other countries like Australia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and New Zealand according to The Commonwealth Fund. Not everyone has the money to afford necessary health care because the prices are way too high for things that are needed for the person's health like hospital care and prescription drugs.

Health Care is important to the lives of everyone. I am sure that you also have healthcare, so you should also be aware of the price increases over the past decade. About 45 million people in America live in poverty, and 3.3 million people make minimum wage or below minimum wage. Those 48.3 million people are not able to afford health care because they cannot pay for it. Those people make about 15% of the population. That is way too many people who cannot afford health care and it is those people who you are putting on the line with unavailable care for their health that they need. I don’t think anyone would want to have to go through the struggle of dealing with unaffordable health care that they need, and that is why this issue is affecting millions of people.

Health care is important not only to me, but to everyone. Health care costs concern me because it is something that I will use when I need it and it is something that is tied to my health, so essentially if I can't pay for my health care, then it is my health being put at risk, and I don’t want my health to be put at risk. I am not the only person who thinks this way. Many people in America are thinking the same things. I think one solution to this problem would be to decrease the costs of healthcare so that it fits the budgets of people making minimum wage or below minimum wage. One of the biggest contributors to high healthcare costs is the use of advanced technology for medical uses and price increases in prescription drugs. Just by lowering the prices for those two things will decrease the price by a lot and make it more affordable for more people. You can also add discounts to certain prescription drugs that are either highly priced or many people use because then it will be cheaper for majority of the people who need it. By lowering healthcare costs, people will not feel that they're in jeopardy because they cannot pay for health care.

All in all, America needs to lower healthcare costs so that everyone who needs it can pay for it because many people need proper health care that is out of reach. Healthcare is a thing that splits our nation into people who can pay for it, and people who can’t, and something needs to be done to tie up the gap that splits our nation. Thank you for reading my letter and I hope that it is useful in your decisions for more affordable health care.

Sincerely,

Dounia Ouzidane

Sources:

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/special-subjects/financial-issues-in-health-care/causes-of-high-health-care-costs

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm

http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-u-s-pays-more-than-other-countries-for-drugs-1448939481

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2015/06/29/u-s-health-care-costs-rise-faster-than-inflation/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/