Medical Daily (21.01.2016) The issue of universal health care has loomed over the U.S. for years. But with rising health care costs, the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare ), and an increasingly tense presidential race, the debate is becoming inescapable. Despite the country’s ever-divided political stance, the fact is the U.S. is one of the only developed nations without a universal health care system. And while most of the population believes this is because health care is primarily privately funded, they’re wrong.