Escape Fire By Susan Froemke And Matthew Heineman

T.R. Reid uses cost, quality, and choice to fully evaluate healthcare systems all around the world. As an American citizen, I have always thought our system was unfair. The poor suffer more than the rich for going to see a doctor for the same reason. In chapter one of The healing of America, T.R. Reid comments on how many Americans have also started to notice that the American healthcare system is not as great as we once thought. Not only is it unfair, but it is also expensive and unsuccessful (9). By looking at all the other countries’ healthcare systems, Reid would then be able to better pinpoint how America can better its health care system by taking portions of those health systems.

The documentary “Money and Medicine,” reveals the essentials of unnecessary health care spending and the policies that intervene with the health care systems. In the beginning of the film, the people being interviewed talked about patients receiving major amounts of unnecessary treatment and that a majority of health care spending is devoted to needless services. Several physicians in the video explained the extreme dangers that are present within health care; along with clarifying that they are paid more when doing harm to their patients and when they do more for them even if it is not beneficial to do so. If the cost of health care continues to rise, health care will become too expensive and unavailable that the U.S. will be put in a financial

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

A major contributor to the rise of healthcare cost is that heath spending for individuals is primarily funded by third-parties. Because consumers of healthcare share little of the financial burden of the cost of the care they receive, patients and physicians are incentivized to utilize healthcare at a higher rate than they would if cost was a larger factor. The United States healthcare systems is based on a capitalist system but it operates in an imperfect marketplace that is no competitive. The current marketplace is not highly regulated as there is not a national health care program for all Americans which allow prices to be regulated and controlled effectively by a single regulating body. In this imperfect

The increase of expenses - As politicians continue their dissension amongst each other, the situation is worsening in our healthcare system. According to the World Health Organization, to achieve universal health coverage, countries need a financial system that enables people access to all types of health services without incurring financial hardship (Carrin, Mathauer, Xu, & Evans, 2011). This idea would be the foundation of innovative ideas that the U.S. could reform its healthcare system, but too many ideas are sabotaging any valid efforts. In the mean time, the U.S. healthcare system continues to deal with issues such as the increasing uninsured Americans (over 49 million), expensive administrative procedures and the inability to measure the accuracy of quality of care, access of care, and the increasing healthcare spending and financing that limit our ability to efficient utilize resources.

The cost of healthcare has and will continue to rise in the United States. Some factors that contribute to those hikes are due to the consumer demanding more complex services from health care providers. Things such as new technology, equipment, research and testing procedures, along with pharmacy, and the number of uninsured are all dynamics of the increased cost in health care. The U.S. health care system relies heavily on third-party payers; these payers include commercial insurers and the Federal and state governments. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, the National Health Expenditure grew 3.6% to $2.9 trillion in 2013, or $9,255 per person, and accounted for 17.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Id.

According to Joe Conason, "America 's current health care system wastes considerably more than a trillion dollars every year. We know that because countries such as France, Germany, Japan and Finland, with comparable standards of living to ours, spend roughly half what the United States spends annually on health care per citizen, while covering everyone and achieving better results." (Conason, 2009) The United States healthcare financial systems are severely flawed - affecting the overall cost control, services, and care made accessible to its clients. The rising costs in healthcare are reaching new highs, and with rising costs, there doesn 't seem to be much change in the quality of the care being given. Clients coming in and out of these

The U.S. spends more resources on healthcare than any other nation. Yet, the The Commonwealth Fund (2014, para. 1) claim the U.S. health system consistently ranks last or near last relative to other industrialized nations regarding health outcomes. Consequently, insurance companies are adopting a value-based reimbursement system aimed at containing costs and improving clinical outcomes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d., para. 35).

In the United States, health care has become a huge expense and has threatened the economy; additional measures need to be taken to address the rising cost of care. An individual spends an estimated eight thousand dollars a year in health care expenditures. Therefore, we need to recognize that how a physician reimbursement for payment has a vast impact on the economy and the rising cost of health care.

Total health care spending in 1975 consumed about 8 percent of the U.S economy in 1975. Today it accounts for nearly 16 percent of the gross domestic product and is projected to reach nearly 20 percent by 2016 (Orszag, 2007). One of the reasons for rising health care costs is due to costly new medical technologies. Some of these new medical advancements allow for physicians to treat previously untreatable conditions. It is unclear as to whether these new options are cost effective. Most people believe that more expensive care equates to better health care. There is significant evidence to support that more expensive care does not necessarily mean higher-quality care. This suggests that there may be an opportunity to reduce health care spending without impairing outcomes The most compelling evidence of that opportunity comes from the substantial geographic differences in spending on health care within the United States-and the fact that they do not translate into higher life expectancy or measured

In 1998, the United States devoted 13% of its economy to health care, and this figure rose to 16% by 2008. However, despite this rise in government expenditure on health care, outcomes for patients remained the same (Obama, 2016). The quality of the health care system in general was not great; health care

burns through $2,797 more every individual consistently than other industrialized nations, despite the fact that 47 million of those individuals are uninsured so the U.S. spends more is that simply the value we pay for having the free decision of suppliers and driving the trends in therapeutic innovation. Not really because no less than 30 percent of all delivered human services administrations are thought to be pointless on the grounds that they do not make very sick individuals any healthier. As an illustration, we should consider Medicare spending. One study contrasted patients and comparable afflictions in high-spending Medicare areas and low-spending Medicare districts. Those patients in the high-spending ranges, who saw their specialist all the more regularly and spent more days in the health facilities, had an expanded risk of biting the dust when contrasted with patients in the lower-spending territories who had the same ailment. It's as though heading off to the specialist in this nation can make a man significantly more debilitated, maybe on the grounds that a patient runs the danger of experiencing unnecessary treatment that correct only the symptoms and not the disease (PBS,

Historically, reimbursement has been Fee-For-Service (FFS): tied to volume of visits, hospitalizations, procedures, and tests. This reimbursement structure creates misaligned incentives and fragmented, suboptimal patient care resulting in burgeoning costs and a lack of focus on outcomes. As a result, CMS and the industry have been

Steven Brill feels that American health care is eating away at our economy and our treasury and discusses the costs associated with the provision of health care services in the U.S.. The article explores the medical world through the medical expenses incurred by a 64-year-old Janice S., Sean Recchi, A 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio and several other egregiously billed patients. The article poses the question: why exactly are the medical bills so high; in particular hospital bills?

The healthcare system plays a key role in the economic stability of our country, as every year trillions are spent in attempt to combat disease and health issues that plaque humanity. As it makes up a significant amount of the expenditures in the economy, so the costs associated with health care of those in pain from illness and injury, including lost productivity, increased need of assistance in living and also the cost of death in some cases, is important to the economic stability and over all standard of living in our country. The key to economic prosperity is balancing the need for care with the costs of illness to keep as many people healthy and well without breaking the bank of collective society. The costs of healthcare have been increasingly problematic in recent years with so many issues surrounding the current system. With the “total health care spending in the United States expected to reach $4.8 trillion in 2021, up from $2.6 trillion in 2010 and $75 billion in 1970, meaning that health care spending will account for nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or one-fifth of the U.S. economy, by 2021” (Aetna). With this in mind it is apparent that as we look at the trillion-dollar industry of the medical community it seems that it needs to be a major focus of our nation as a whole and with the many issues come many creative solutions. First let us analyze the reasons behind the current cost and the major problems facing this industry and than discus what