American Healthcare System: A Case Study

The first characteristic of the US health care system is that there is no central governing agency which allows for little integration and coordination. While the government has a great influence on the health care system, the system is mostly controlled through private hands. The system is financed publically and privately creating a variety of payments and delivery unlike centrally controlled healthcare systems in other developed countries. The US system is more complex and less manageable than centrally controlled health care systems, which makes it more expensive. The second characteristic of the US health care system is that it is technology driven and focuses on acute care. With more usage of high technology,

Another reason for the rising cost of healthcare is the cost of physician care, according to the American Hospital Association “the cost of physician care, both to insurance and patients, has risen 1.3% during the past year.” Because of this increase doctors are put in a corner, they are already locked into an agreement with the insurance companies and do not have much ‘wiggle’ room to negotiate fees and rates. So because of this the patients and consumers are forced to pay a much larger sum. Since there are higher costs and the insurers will not cover them, they are distributes to the customers through higher deductibles, co-insurance, and

The single most important impetus for healthcare reform throughout recent history has been rising costs (Sultz, 2006). In the book called The healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care, Reid wrote that the nation’s health care system has become excessively expensive, ineffective, and unjust. Among the world’s developed nations, the US ranks near the bottom for healthcare access and quality. However, the US ranks at the top for health expenditure as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and average of $7,400 per person (Reid, 2010). Therefore, Americans are spending

Healthcare costs in the United States have been rising for several years and show no sign of stopping. In 2008, the United States spent on 2.3 trillion on healthcare, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 19801. Although the large amount of money invested in healthcare does translate to better care for Americans, the worsening economic situation, rising costs, and federal government’s deficit have placed a great strain on the system. This includes private employer-sponsored health insurance coverage and public insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a private and non-profit healthcare analysis organization, “in 2008, U.S. health care spending was about $7,681 per resident and accounted for 16.2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); this is among the highest of all industrialized countries”1. Concerns for the enormous strain on the financial systems that fund healthcare and the desperate need to provide adequate healthcare for Americans have driven many a President since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, to seek some type of healthcare reform and universal healthcare for all Americans. President Barack Obama succeeded where many had failed and on March 23, 2010, a national health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law. On March 31, 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued new rules

One of this health care’s programs objective is to limit the number of uninsured (Shi & Singh, 2015). This controversial healthcare plan incorporates a privately funded insurance which is paid for through employment and solely by the patient and a publicly funded insurance by the government. Medicare is provided for senior citizens 65 and older, and Medicaid is provided for low income citizens. The federal government and state government both partake in the funding of Medicaid. Although insurance is provided to the low income through Medicaid, the United States continues to suffer from cost escalation spending 17.1 percent of GDP on healthcare in 2013, a 50 percent more than the second nation (Commonwealth, n.d.) The high cost and limited coverage continues to spark up the conversation for a

2. Here, the research shows that in many situations, healthcare professionals are urged to conduct unnecessary tests and procedures in order to rack up the bill for insurance claims to then

The ever rising cost of healthcare has made access to healthcare almost impossible to many households in the United States. That these households have stagnant incomes has further complicated issues (Collins, 2008). Many working families without insurance cover have been forced to pay for their own medical expenses that consume lion share of their incomes. Individuals have been forced to forfeit healthcare because of its inherent costs. The lower-income and middle-income families are a very vulnerable lot because they are either uninsured or underinsured (Collins, 2008).

Primary care is the backbone of many industrialized nations, but is the US one of them? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The US lags behind such developed nations in its accessibility of primary care by a huge difference. The United States healthcare system fails to ensure the timely preventative and primary care for its residents. The current estimates indicate that there is merely one physician for every 2,500 patients. Not only Medicare beneficiaries, but also privately insured adults struggle in accessing the right primary care physician at the right time. Moreover, maldistribution of physicians only exacerbates the problem, especially for those residing in health professional shortage areas (HPSA).15 Approximately, sixty-five million Americans live in designated primary care shortage areas.13 Such underserved population faces higher disease and death rates and health disparities that then result in higher rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits—in other words, expensive medical bills.21 More governmental control on the geographic location of primary care physicians can be a first-step to fixing the shortage problem.

As we all know, the United States has been and continues to be on the edge of national health reforms due to uncontrolled healthcare costs. Since the U.S. health care system does not lead the world in health of its own citizens, 28 million Americans remain uninsured and 30 Million more are underinsured as of 2016 (Jama, 2016). The national health reform started in the early 1900s when the American people faced sickness that led to poverty. Working people had to miss work due to sickness which led to a loss of their wages and steady income, making it hard to pay for medical expenses. The decreased income, made it hard to seek medical attention, because it became a matter of just being able to cover necessities. President Theodore Roosevelt

Patients in the United States pay more for less with the current healthcare system. They spend more money on less care than any other developed nation. Not only are they paying for less care, they are paying more money for a lower standard than every other industrialized nation. Every country has a different system of healthcare, most of which are better than the current system used by the United States in terms of financial burden on the patient.

One way the Federal Government can make healthcare more effective is to make it more affordable. This can be accomplished by reintroducing the originally slated public option to the Affordable Healthcare Act. The public option was originally included in the ACA and even passed the initial House vote. However, it was later removed by the Senate Financial Committee and not included in the final Senate bill that passed (citation needed). There are three reasons why the public option should to be reintroduced into the health care system: to help control premium costs, increase marketplace competition in rural areas and increase the quality and diversity of offered plans. Indeed, what is so important about the national option is that it will naturally function as a “benchmark”, or price and care baseline, within the current insurance exchange system mandated by the ACA (citation needed). By virtue of currently existing systems such as Medicare, the public option will have access to superior negotiating leverage that will help keep private competitive rates affordable. Indeed, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are “less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage” (Nichols et al. 6). Furthermore, according to the Medicare Payment

The U.S. has experienced a dramatic change over the last decade. Health costs have continued to rise and have become unreasonable. Health care spending in the United States is expected to reach about $4.6 trillion in 2021.The spending of health care costs has affected the citizens of the U.S. as well as health care facilities negatively. Americans are not capable of paying for health expenses on their own. There are some reasonable options that have been suggested as a solution to this issue, but have not been successful. For example, aids such as health insurance and Medicaid help with a certain percentage of the overall cost, but people are still left to pay for health insurance premiums and the remaining expenses that the insurance does

Throughout the progression of our society we have been faced with extensive public policy issues that impact our country as a whole. Today, rising health costs in the United States has become one of the biggest threats to our essential growing economy. Rising health care cost has “trickle-down effect”, when private healthcare insurance companies raise insurance premiums. Companies that subsidize these premiums for their workers our then forced to raise prices. American companies then sequentially struggle to compete with countries on the global market. Another issue that significantly affected the rising cost in America is the uninsured and underinsured. In an effort to cover cost for underinsured patients’ hospitals raise costs for paying

Today’s health care system is very different from how it used to be. There have been many changes that have taken place which represent the major shifts involved in moving from a plan which was based mainly on what the patient wanted, to a managed care system. The American health care system has evolved immensely over the past years and it continues to evolve to this day. As health care costs continue to rise, as treatments become even more costly, and as the population continues to age, it is essential to understand how health care is different from in the past and how changes in the future will impact families across the nation. By addressing past modifications, awareness is brought upon individuals and families regarding the progression of the current health care system.

The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world. It spends