Health care: The Tale of a Luxurious Necessity
The prevalence of bankruptcy’s filed due to health care costs has become increasingly common. American’s specifically are paying substantially with their wallets for even routine care. The costs of health care are unremittingly rising and becoming out of control for even the average family to afford. Concurrently, other parts of the world are giving more accurate and efficient health care for minimal cost. Undeniably, the United States needs health care reform, because health care conditions aren’t going away and simultaneously the American people are being taken advantage. Humans require health care as a basic necessity, quickly, efficiently, and should be able to participate regardless of wealth or status. Government intervention in the form of universal health care, wellness programs, and price caps would allow for greater efficiency in a system suffering from inflated prices and convoluted bureaucracy. The first question that comes to mind, that we should ask ourselves, is in regards to the actual assessment of the United States health care. A private organization named The Commonwealth Fund gives us an objective view of international health care excellence. The Common Wealth Fund rates countries by quality using indicators such as effective care, safe care, coordinated care, and patient-centered care. Eleven wealthy nations are studied in the report from 2010-2014 that includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the
“There are three basic goals for a National Health Care System; 1) keeping people healthy, 2) treating the sick and 30 protecting families against financial ruin from medical bills”, (Physicians for a National Health Program, 2016). No truer statement could there possibly be written or proclaimed as there is a crisis in healthcare costs across the United States. United States, one of the most developed western country, yet we suffer from – higher infant mortality rates, have shorter life spans and are affected by more chronic disease and or illness – than our contemporaries all while spending the most for insurance per capita and less annual doctor visits with less physicians, (OECD Health Data 2015). There is a question to be answered, “why”, why are we trailing our contemporaries and more important than that is, is our National Health Care system really working for us? The year 2010 was the beginning of change in the United States where we transitioned from primarily private insurance and welfare to a universal healthcare model, under President Obama with the signing into Law of the Affordable Health Care Act March of 2010. The purpose of the Affordable health care act is to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable healthcare, however in 2016 we are still questioning we’ve been successful based on funding, government sponsored healthcare programs, effects on the current HCO, elderly, military and accessibility.
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
The rising cost of health care has led companies to stop offering health insurance for employees, and private insurance is often too expensive for people to afford. Many families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but are unable to pay for private health insurance. Health care costs in the United States have more than doubled in the last twenty years. Insurance premiums are rising five times faster than wages, and Americans are spending more money on health care than people in any other country. The average amount one person pays per year for health care in the United States is 134 times higher than the average of other industrialized countries (“Health Care Issues”). Even people who have insurance aren’t guaranteed coverage. Many insurance companies find loopholes to avoid paying for expensive medical treatment, leaving people with massive debt from medical bills. Medical bills and illness cause over half of all personal bankruptcies in the United
With these outstanding evidences the Commonwealth Fund placed United States last in terms of overall health system ranking measured by different categories of access to care, equity, quality, efficiency and healthy lives compared to other developed countries. Among those rank categories, our health system is specifically placed last in access to care and efficiency. 37% of the adults in United States reported that they did not receive the recommended treatment, surgery or follow up care due to high cost. 40% of adults who had visited emergency room reported that they could have instead just visited a regular doctor if it was available. U.S. was also ranked last in infant mortality rate and amount of deaths preventable through timely access to healthcare.
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
The U.S. health care system consumes a huge amount of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, and is a massive system that provides essential and world-class care to millions of people (Niles, 2016). As a result of this huge burden of cost associated with it, the U.S. healthcare system has been critiqued, and has played a major role in sparking debates about changes to the way the U.S. healthcare system is run and organized. Thus, healthcare has been on the forefront of many American and politician minds over the last decade and beyond, and many proposals and attempts have been made to change and adapt the complex and influential U.S. healthcare system. One such attempt, that brought about incredibly influential change to the U.S. healthcare
The United States health care system has its own unique way of delivery, unlike many other developed countries where health care is a right for all and almost all the citizens have access to basic health care services. In the United States, health care is market based. If you cannot afford it, then you shouldn’t expect to receive coverage. This causes a human right crisis and deprives millions of Americans from receiving the care they need. The privatization of the U.S. health care system results in a substantial number of Americans who are without health insurance. The health care system is constantly undergoing changes, in response to fears of access, quality and cost. Despite all of these changes, there are still significant disparities
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
It also ranks 37th out of the world’s 191 countries in overall health care efficiency according to the World Health Organization. Although this ranking may appear decent at first glance, it becomes apparent that the current system is broken given the context that the “U.S. [spends] more per person on health care than 12 other high-income nations” (The Commonwealth Fund). These twelve countries include Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
I feel heath care reform was necessary, health care costs affect the economy, the federal budget, and virtually every American’s family’s financial well-being. According to Obama, “In 2008, the United States devoted 16% of the economy to health care, an increase of almost one-quarter since 1998 (when 13% of the economy was spent on health care), yet much of that spending did not translate into better outcomes for patients” (Obama, 2016, p.526). In 2008, 1 in 7 Americans did not have health insurance (Obama, 2016). Clearly something was wrong with the health care system in the United States. The United States spends more than twice as much on health care per person as other developed countries (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2015). If you worked for a company that did not provide health insurance, most people went without and used Emergency Rooms for primary care. I live in Massachusetts. Massachusetts was the only state in the country to require anyone over the age of 18 to have health insurance. If you didn’t, you were penalized with a monetary fine. There are many benefits to mandated Health Insurance. One benefit is if you become sick, you don’t have to worry about going bankrupt getting care. Secondly, the cost of health care will come down and finally the federal deficit will come down. The Affordable Care Act seems to be working. According to Obama “The Affordable Care Act had made significant progress toward solving
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.
Despite recent changes that have slightly improved the proficiency and productivity of the American health care system, it continues to be a deficient and muddled operation that damages both the lives and livelihoods of those that depend on its competence. Rather than looking to the efficient systems established by the majority of the developed world, The United States still clings to its archaic and incompetent model of privately controlled health care. This has created a structure where, despite paying nearly twice that of other western countries, the life expectancy and quality of treatment is either the same, or inferior. We spend more tax money per capita than many other nations, spend more as private individuals, and still experience mediocre outcomes that often result in bankruptcy for the person or family attempting to receive proper care (Squires, 2015). Instead of this abhorrent example of incompetence and instability, The United States should switch to a single-payer health care system.
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
Health care reform has been a big topic since the Clinton administration when First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, took it under her belt to devise a new system. Health care is the provision taken to preserve mental and physical health using prevention and treatment. Compared to other health care systems in the world, the United States is ranked 37th in terms of care, claims Michael Moore (2007). Ironically, our health care system spends more than any other nation on its patients, averaging nearly $8,000 per person (DiNitto, 2012). With soaring costs, it is no surprise that one in every seven Americans are uninsured (Kaiser, 2011). Even with these sorry figures, statistics show that 85% of Americans are satisfied with their health care