• The elderly are often hit hard trying to afford medical care.Andrew Bret Wallis/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
  
  National health insurance is another phrase that describes the concept of universal health care. In a pure national insurance system, all members of a country will be covered under a plan that provides financial help for those who can't afford services and offers medical services everywhere they're needed. No nation or politician has yet figured out how to realistically make this utopian ideal a complete reality, though many continue to try.
  
  

Breakthroughs

• Weakonomics poses the idea that one of the detriments to national health insurance is that the lack of wide open competition for profit will have a chilling effect on medical breakthroughs heretofore resulting from rival companies going all out to develop the next big drug. Ultimately, it comes down to the idea that, without a profit motive, pharmaceutical companies will see little reason to risk time and money bringing a new, possibly miraculous product to market. If it's true that a national system with controlled costs removes the motivation to innovate, then such measures could conceivably cause the wide open field of medical research and development to become stagnant.
  
  

Leadership

• Another potential drawback to the issue of national health insurance is the prospect of federal government administration of the program. Judging by the perpetual bankruptcy concerns and corruption through lack of oversight in government run programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, one might find it hard to believe that a national health system is something anyone should look forward to. Others have constitutional concerns that a health plan implemented with such breadth and penetration into society carries an obvious risk of constitutional issues regarding states' rights and individual liberty.
  
  

Funding

• An overriding concern for many when it comes to national health insurance is quite pragmatic -- where the money will come to pay for it all. Since every penny the government spends is derived from taxes, paying the bill for a program massive enough to cover every American will likely involve an increased tax burden of some sort, and don't expect premiums to drop. On the contrary, they will probably continue to rise, just like they always have.
  
  

Service

• While horror stories of long waits for critical care services abound from nationalized health nations like Canada and Great Britain, some of which may be true, it's hard to imagine that the increased burden of every citizen suddenly vying for medical services could do anything but increase wait times. Weakonomics claims that it takes residents of Saskatchewan 22 months to receive an MRI, and 57 percent of Canadians report waiting at least one month to see a specialist. This is not an across-the-board condemnation but raises the question of the ability of an overburdened system trying to cycle more patients through.