The U.S. healthcare system is broken. The health care expenditures are the highest in the world and increasing every year at a rate that poses a serious threat to all Americans. For example, the national health expenditures per capita increase from $1,110.00 in 1980 to $9,255 in 2013 and it projected to rise to 19.3% by 20251. However, higher spending does not produce better health care or better outcomes and does not improve patient perceptions of the accessibility or quality of healthcare care. We had enough, we cannot rely on our wasteful, fragmented multi-payer system of financing health care; something must be done to improve our healthcare system and make healthcare affordable for the entire nation.
I strongly believe that there is such
Walter Cronkite, an American broadcast journalist, once stated: “America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” The structure we use can simply be summarized as capitalistic and inefficient. The United States healthcare system is a constant cycle of an astronomical amount of money wasted on doctors who don’t invest the right amount of care into their patients; however, we need to move healthcare upstream in a way that results in improving health at the start and discarding harmful programs.
Healthcare dollars spent rang in at 2.9 trillion dollars in 2013 (CMS, 2016). Expenditures have increased from 5 to 18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in the U.S., which is higher than most other nations, despite achieving poorer outcomes (King, 2017). Costs are equivalent to $9,900 per person (King, 2017). Poor cost control has led to a worsened quality of life, financial hardship, and personal bankruptcy for many patients and their families (King, 2017). Americans must strive for a comprehensive solution to cost containment while improving outcomes in the face of a broken, unsustainable system.
If there is one thing that most Americans are in agreement with, it is the vile shape of our U.S. health care system. There is no argument that the U.S. health care system is in need of an overhaul, however, there is much debate over just how to effectively go about the process. The public have voiced greatest concern in the health care areas of costs, quality and access. Many presidents have pondered the idea of health care reform; a few even made attempts to start the ball rolling. The first
There are many problems with healthcare in America today. One of them including the astronomical cost. According to CDC.ORG in 2007 the average person spends seven thousand four hundred dollars per year on health care alone. This rise in healthcare is extremely detrimental for families, seniors, and people of all ages. With such a high cost of insurance people are forced to make hard choices in
The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss the current level of national healthcare expenditures and to determine if we as Americans are spending too much on healthcare. The author of this paper will provide examples and solutions where we as a nation should add or cut from the healthcare expenditures. This paper will also detail how the general public's healthcare needs are being paid for, the biggest economic healthcare challenge, why the challenge should be addressed, and how this challenge to be financed.
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
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.
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 United States spends a lot of money on health care and people are starting to notice. The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was not only supposed to make health care more accessible, but also more affordable. Despite that health care spending has continued to increase and people across the country are voicing a growing concern about what it costs to keep themselves and their families healthy. Politicians on both sides of the party lines speak often and with passion about this health care crisis in America. Everyone agrees that health care takes up too much of the economic pie, but despite the enormity of this problem no one can agree on just why that is and how exactly go about fixing this crisis.
The subject of healthcare in the United States can be a contentious one, and it is also an area where peoples' perceptions don't always align with the facts given by policymakers. What makes healthcare spending so scandalous is the amount of money the United States pours into healthcare each year. Over $8,000 per-patient per-year costs, amount that has more than double any of the other nation. Yet 15 to 25% of the American population has no healthcare coverage due to a lack of any form of universal
The United States healthcare system has been the topic of much debate lately, with many propositions and reforms introduced to the public to remedy the many complaints made against the current system. The U.S. spend entirely too much money on health care. Based on data released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the "U.S. spent more on health care per capita ($4, 849) and more than 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to health care" (Squires, 2012).
The United States spends twice as much per citizen for health insurance as any other country in the entire world, but continues to fall behind other countries when it comes to coverage and quality (Rangel, 2011). There are nearly forty-six million uninsured Americans, and millions more have inadequate coverage. The affordable health care act, was designed to help millions of Americans. But, to Americans it is questionable at best. Obamacare is so fundamentally inconsistent that it is taking Americans in the opposite direction of the necessary reforms needed. The root cause for our health care system include misaligned reimbursement policies and incentives, lack of integrated patient care process, and poorly coordinated patient care treatment (Health Care Delivery System Reform, 2015). America cannot build sustainable health reform on a dysfunctional health care system. The United States needs to get rid of Obamacare and pass a new comprehensive reform that makes health care affordable for families, businesses, and the government.
Our healthcare system needs major restructuring. Major improvements needs to begin with "all health care organizations, professional groups, and private and public purchasers should adopt as their explicit purpose to continually reduce the burden of illness, injury, and disability, and to improve the health and functioning of the people of the United States", (Crossing the ……, 2001).
healthcare system preforms inadequately and is ranked 37th in the world next to countries who don’t have the advanced medicine or technology like the U.S. which is terrifying. Among the top wealthiest countries we are dead last and highest health expenditures according to common wealth fund. How is it possible that a country like ours that has all the technology in the world fall short in providing health care? The answer – money, America’s health care has become more of a business than a service. America has, become an over medicated country consumed by greed by private practice insurance and physicians. Unlike other countries where it’s a service provided to its citizens everybody is insured, everybody has access to quality health care at a low cost.
US health care expenditures have been rising quickly over the past few years; it has risen more than the national financial system. Nonetheless a number of citizens in the US still lack appropriate health care. If the truth be told, health care expenditures are going to continue to increase; in addition numerous individuals will possibly have to make difficult choices pertaining to their health care. Our health system has grave problems that require reform, through reforming, there is optimism that there will be an increase in affordable health care and high-quality of care for America. Medicaid, Medicare and private sector insurances are all going through trials and tribulations because of