Fragmented Health Care Case Study

The U.S. is an industrialized nation that continues to be behind on providing health care coverage to all citizens. However, the German health care system came up with a plan that ensured all citizens are provided with some form of health care coverage; nevertheless, the U.S. continues to dispute health care reform and how to provide coverage to all citizens. “Health spending per capita in the United States is much higher than in other countries – at least $2,535 dollars, or 51%, higher than Norway, the next largest per capita spender. Furthermore, the United States spends nearly double the average $3,923 for the 15 countries ("Health Care Cost," 2011, table 1)”.

The American healthcare system is an ongoing ailment that is at the forefront of issues plaguing America. Unlike the rest of the world, the American healthcare system is a combination of several models that caters for distinct classes of people. Other countries, such as China and Switzerland, have adopted a one-size-fits-all model in which everyone falls under. This model is a more straightforward as well as cheaper approach to America's healthcare system.

In America, health care has become a big controversy. Recently politicians have tried to create the perfect health care system that works for everyone. As one can imagine it is pretty hard to find a single health care plan to work for over 300 million people. Since our country began the states, not the federal government, have been given the challenge of finding a healthcare system that will work for everyone. Prior to the colonial era colonist and native americans handled domestic

The term “complex” is defined in the dictionary as “a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc.., which is complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with.” The healthcare system has proven to be the most complex industry on a global scale, as it continuously challenges nations to mobilize and strategize a more cost efficient and quality driven health care system. Healthcare is an essential part of life in which all individuals take advantage of with or without insurance coverage. Consequently, healthcare costs is the largest global expense, causing nations to revolutionize their health systems in efforts to contain cost. Developed countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom have focalized on universal health systems tailored to their needs to contain healthcare costs. Although universal health systems are idealistic for the government and its citizens, quality and access of care is a continuous issue. Before discussing the problems related to universal health systems, we must first understand the benefits of both (Canada and United Kingdom) systems. After analyzing the pros and cons of these systems, we will then analyze the U.S. and their efforts to contain healthcare costs with the Affordable Care Act, and if transitioning to a universal health care system would be beneficial to our economy.

In 2010, the United States took the first tangible step toward universal health care coverage, with the legalization of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent report the total population of the United States is nearly 309 million people (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). In 2009, it was estimated 49 % of the population was covered under an employer sponsored insurance plan (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009). The same 2009 data reported an additional 29 % of the population was covered under some form of government or public program (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009). Leaving 17 % of the U.S. population vulnerable without any form of health insurance coverage

The healthcare system of the United States was established as a system of health and welfare programs created to provide affordable treatment to the citizens of the United States. Recently, the Affordable Health Care Act was passed changing the structure of the system (Mulvany, 2012). While in theory the new arrangement works, it has its flaws due to the resulting cost, slowness, and the government interfering with religious and personal beliefs. These problems have led many people to question the role of the government in the life of the individual.

Healthcare coverage is a contentious issue for the United States and affects everyone, those with low income and individuals with higher income. The common complaint among individuals is the cost of care. The US is notorious for having a higher cost for medical care than other developed countries. Up to this point finding, suitable plans have been fruitless therefore it’s time to explore other options. Universal health coverage is indeed to beneficial to the country. According to Herzlinger, Richman & Boxer (2017), The main reason for a delay in the implementation of affordable universal coverage is that of the high costs to treat individuals with a pre-existing condition since they are accounting for a significant portion of health care spending

Universal Health care has been the topic of discussion among politicians and Americans today and has shown zero signs of slowing down in the future. The United States is considered one of the very few countries that spends an extensive amount of money on healthcare yet people are still struggling to receive care that’s needed and dying at a alarming rate due to the fact that they cannot afford insurance coverage for themselves and their families. In March of 2010 President Barack Obama implemented the Affordable Care Act, providing millions of Americans who previously did not have health insurance the ability to acquire and purchase premiums, however there are still some serous issues surrounding its implementation.” While the president

The United States of America is the most prosperous and free country in the world because of hard working citizens and the God-given freedoms we possess. America has contributed countless scientific and medical discoveries and accomplished feats deemed impossible by others. The wealth and progress in this country was not brought about by government intervention and supervision, but from individuals who had the freedom to do what they did best. Because of this freedom, America’s healthcare is currently unmatched anywhere in the world. Though other countries may tout free healthcare, they make it up with burdening taxes, understaffed hospitals, and incredibly long wait periods. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act puts America’s healthcare system in jeopardy of falling into the same trap. “Obamacare”, as it is referred to, moves America to a bureaucratized and overburdened system having far reaching consequences on taxpayers, professionals, and patients and should be repealed.

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.

I take the term to mean having multiple decision makers make a set of health care decisions that would be made better through unified decision making. Individual decision makers responsible for only one fragment of a relevant set of health care decisions may fail to understand the full picture, may lack the power to take all the appropriate actions given what they know, or may even have affirmative incentives to shift costs onto others. All these forms of fragmentation can lead to bad health care decisions. Fragmentation can occur along many dimensions. Looking at the narrowest dimension, we might be concerned about fragmentation in treating particular illnesses, such as the lack of coordination among the various professionals involved in treating

The United States system of healthcare when compared with healthcare systems in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan is far more expensive, is notably inefficient, leaves 47 million people uninsured, and forces "hundreds of thousands of people into bankruptcy," according to a PBS video "Sick Around the World." This paper compares the current U.S. healthcare system which at the moment is undergoing a difficult transition into the Affordable Care Act with the healthcare programs in the above-mentioned countries.

It is no secret that the US healthcare has many issues in its system. Especially, when you compare it to other countries like: Great Britain, Japan, France, Canada etc. According to Sultz and Young states that “The United States ranks eighth behind all of these nations in life expectancy at birth, highest in infant mortality rate, and highest in the probability of people dying between the age of 15 and 60 years.” The US healthcare system has many issues like a large number of uninsured According to Sara R. Collins, Munira Gunja and Sophie Beutel in the 2014 census 33 million people were uninsured. Other issues are medical professional shortage, medical error or infection, people using apps to diagnose themselves, and rising cost of care. The main focus in these paper will be the rising of cost. The cost of current health care explains for most of the issues that is happening in this country.

Universal Healthcare sounds appealing, but it actually lowers the quality and quantity of healthcare services that are rendered to patients, thus downgrading the healthcare system as a whole.  Not having to pay, with everyone having coverage leads to longer wait times for medical service and many people overusing health care services. Implementation of Universal Healthcare in the United States would lead to a detrimental crippling of the nation’s health system. For those countries that have implemented Universal Healthcare or a system similar to it, all or most aspects of the coverage such as cost and care is generally provided by and tightly controlled by the government, a public-sector committee, or employer-based programs, with most of the funding essentially coming from tax revenues or budget cuts in other areas of spending. This paper will conclude with comparing the US healthcare system to others and how the US has one of the most advanced systems in the world.

The health care delivery system in U.S. has multiple components that enable people to receive health care. It is unique and not simple system with decentralized group of health care services that are sometimes lack of coordination, standardization, and planning. Also the system has overpriced services, multiple insurers, selective access, and imperfect market. These are outcomes of lack a single national entity or set of policies guiding the health care system. Often happens that doctors and hospitals who practicing in the same community and caring for the same patients are not "connected" to each other. The U.S. current healthcare payment model it is a mix of private insurers and public programs where each have own set of rules and payment algorithms that brings problem of waste and high administrative costs. However U.S. health care system use the most advanced