Health Care System In The United States

The U.S. health care system faces challenges that indicate that the people urgently need to be reform. Attention has rightly focused on the approximately 46 million Americans who are uninsured, and on the many insured Americans who face rapid increases in premiums and out-of-pocket costs. As Congress and the Obama administration consider ways to invest new funds to reduce the number of Americans without insurance coverage, we must simultaneously address shortfalls in the quality and efficiency of care that lead to higher costs and to poor health outcomes. To do otherwise casts doubt on the feasibility and sustainability of coverage expansions and also ensures that our current health care system will continue to have large gaps even for those with access to insurance coverage.

In recent years, health care has been a huge topic in public debates, legislations, and even in deciding who will become the next president. There have been many acts, legislations, and debates on what the country has to do in regards to health care. According to University of Phoenix Read Me First HCS/235 (n.d.), “How health care is financed influences access to health care, how health care is delivered, the quality of health care provided, and its cost”.

The US health care system is can be difficult to understand since “many parts of the system are run by hundreds of individual organizations, including the government, nonprofit, and for profit enterprises (Understanding the US Healthcare system, 2015). Breaking down the US health care system into different parts will make it easier to understand, while showing the pros and cons, and how it impacts the role of nurses. Formally, I will do the same to Norway’s health care system and spot the similarities or differences with how each one is being run.

2008 was an election year and also the year Frontline’s program, Sick Around the World was made. A big topic pertaining to the election year was healthcare reform. How were the presidential candidates going to “fix” the U.S. health care system that is supposedly the best in the world? At the time of this program, the U.S. was 37th in the world in terms of fairness and quality (Palfreman, 2008). Other rich countries were ahead of this U.S. in this ranking but were spending a lot less. Frontline’s reporter, T.R. Reid traveled to 5 different countries to examine their health care systems on how this was possible and hopefully come away with any ideas that could potentially help with the U.S. health care system.

The U.S. health care system faces challenges and it is urgent that the American people become aware of these challenges. There are approximately 46 million Americans who are uninsured, and many insured Americans who face rapid increases in premiums have to pay out-of-pocket costs. As Congress and the Obama administration consider ways to invest new funds to reduce the number of Americans without insurance coverage, people must address shortfalls in the quality and efficiency of care that lead to higher costs and to poor health outcomes. If something is not done soon, there will be many more who will not have health care coverage that is affordable or they will be without coverage altogether.

Health care systems are organizations that are formed to meet the overall health needs of the population. Health care is regarded as one of the leading cause in promoting not only physical and mental health but the well-being of the population. Legislation is implemented requiring government to offer services to all members of its society. The role of health services and the organizations that provide aid is to focus on the health of an individual and to uphold their human rights. According to WHO (2013), a “well-functioning health care system requires a robust financing mechanism, a well-trained and adequately-paid workforce, reliable information on which to base decisions and policies, and well maintained facilities and logistics to deliver quality medicines and technologies (World Health Organization; 2013).

The United States has a broad history of diversity and challenges that no other country has faced. One of those challenges has been providing healthcare for its citizens. Healthcare in the United States started out with many religious groups that wanted to help those in need. This form of care for the people of this country has grown to a healthcare system that accounts for 3.2 trillion dollars of the nation’s gross domestic products (CMS (2016). This staggering number has grown each year and clearly shows the impact that it can have on the economy.

The U.S. health care system faces challenges and it is urgent that the American people become aware of these challenges. There are approximately 46 million Americans who are uninsured, and many insured Americans who face rapid increases in premiums have to pay out-of-pocket costs. As Congress and the Obama administration consider ways to invest new funds to reduce the number of Americans without insurance coverage, people must address shortfalls in the quality and efficiency of care that lead to higher costs and to poor health outcomes. If something is not done soon, there will be many more who will not have health care coverage that is affordable or they will be without coverage altogether.

The United States of America is without a doubt one of the largest, most diverse countries in the world. The U.S is universally known for it’s ground breaking medical research and scientific technological advances. Paying nearly 2.6 trillion on medical related services (Silverman & Demak, 2011), the U.S continuously exceeds their financial budget each year, ranking them #1 for the highest healthcare spending in the world. Ironically, Americans are among the few who are not guaranteed medical coverage. For Americans healthcare insurance comes in many forms, some receive it through job benefits or government programs such as, Medicaid and Medicare, while others are among the many not financially covered at all. There are many potential issues arising from the U.S healthcare plan such as high insurance cost, unfair selection and denial of coverage, and high rates of uninsured citizens.

The United States healthcare system is one of the most expensive systems in the world with 16% of its gross domestic product (GDP) assigned to it, it is expected that this spending may increase up 20% of the US GDP by 2016.1 Unfortunately, despite the large amount of money delegated to this system there are still widening gap in health disparities existing in the US, based on geographical areas, race/ethnic groups or class.2 Other factors such as genetics, social circumstances, environmental exposures, behavioral patterns, and lopsided access to opportunities encourage such disparities.1,3 The number of people that do not have access to healthcare in the US is alarming, for instance in 2005 about 40 million Americans did not receive healthcare services because of their inability to purchase health insurance policy and/or pay out of pocket.1

The quality of and lack of healthcare in the United States has been a major issue and in fact a major failing in terms of keeping the society healthy. This paper relates to the lack of good health care for many people based on the insurance companies' unfavorable policies. It also delves into the Affordable Care Act and how that legislation is designed to remedy some of the unfair policy and other flaws in the commercial health insurance industry.

For many years the condition of the United States health care system has been a hot topic for debate. Some would like to believe that the U.S has the best health care system in the world, but unfortunately that may not be the truth. In 2000 The World Health Organization (WHO) released a world health report. The report ranked the overall health system performance of 191 countries; the United States was ranked at 37 out of the 191. “With out-of-control costs, highly inequitable coverage and comparatively low health outcomes, the US healthcare system has failed to provide efficient, dependable coverage for the population as a whole as compared to most European and developed Asian systems” (Blank, 2012). In other developed

This is why the federal government should enact a program guaranteed subsidized health care to better protect and serve all of its citizens. This paper examines the four models of health care around the world to see how each would be beneficial in the United States.

Is it possible for two countries which are thousands of kilometers away from each other to have some similarities in their health care system? Health care system is one of the most important and fundamental sectors in any country or region all around the world. Many countries pour a major amount of their overall income to support the health care system. And the main reason behind this tremendous effort provided by the countries all around the world for the health care system is that each country wants to provide a good and high standard health care services for all the population occupying the land whether they were local citizens or Non- local citizens . This essay will compare and contrast the health care system in two wonderful countries:

Have you ever thought about the differences between the United States and other countries around the world? If you were to move across the world and live in Europe or Asia, you may see that the government, economy, and culture are different; In addition to those, the type and quality of health care will also change which is quite important regarding your health and wealth. Health Care by Noel Merino covers topics and issues around the world regarding health care. Throughout our American Government class, we have discussed and focused on topics that influence voters to vote for a certain party: The decision on what we should do with health care is one of the influencers. Since we have only studied what goes on in the United States because