Health Care
Compared to other Western countries, the United States spends more per capita on health care than any other nation. In 1990; for example, national expenditures for health care were more than 40% comparing to Canada during the same period, whose spending was the second highest. Despite the enormous expense of health care in the United States, the general standards of health, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, are not as high as those in countries which spend less. Currently, the U.S. has a health care system based on insurance coverage; hence, the majority of the population is covered by private/employer-based insurance. Generally the employer pays a major part of the insurance premium and the individual pays a deductible
…show more content…
Therefore; it is my opinion that the government should institute a form of national health insurance for every American. This will defiantly cover the unemployed, disable and the elderly. In some ways however; the government deals with this insufficient coverage through public insurance programs developed under the Social Security Amendments of 1965. This amendment created both Medicare, which provides voluntary supplementary medical insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which gives grants to states to provide insurance for those below a certain income level. Despite these programs that have designed to aid those who do not have group enrollment through employment, there are still millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. These are Americans who do not fall below the income level which would give them access to Medicaid, yet whose employers do not offer them insurance. Given these information I think it would be in the best interest of politicians and private investors to have a national insurance scheme. Moreover; it will make a great difference for U.S. companies, such as automobile manufacturers, to compete internationally when most developed countries provide national health insurance (Legerski, …show more content…
Moreover; it is no secret that many Americans are opposed to a universal entitlement program because they believe it will lead to runaway costs. However, nations that entitle all residents to health care spend less money than the U.S. because they save on the administrative costs, which is a huge thing for Americans. Hence; politicians and business should do a comparative analysis another country's system as a starting point, in order to learn how to create a national health program that does not lead to increased costs for every American (Monahan, & Schwarcz, 2013). With this much room for possible improvement, the incentives should be sufficient to foster changes in behavior from politicians and
has the world’s most expensive healthcare system, yet one-sixth of Americans are uninsured. Approximately one-third (31%) of adults and a little more than one-half (54%) of children do not have a primary care doctor. Federal spending on healthcare in 2005 alone totaled $600 billion, a massive one-quarter of the federal budget. Someone files for bankruptcy every 30 seconds in the U.S of health concerns. And every 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure due to unaffordable medical costs. The U.S. spends six times more per capita on the administration of the health insurance system than Western European nations, who insure all citizens.“ www.realtruth.org/articles/090203-005-health.html. “In United States, the annual cost of health care per capita is $5,711. http://www.visualeconomics.com/healthcare-costs-around-the-world_2010-03-01/#ixzz12f0I1lbk
The United States is the only remaining industrialized nation without some form of universal access to medical services (Light, 2002). As an industrialized nation, it is shameful to see so many people suffer on various levels due to inadequate access to appropriate health care (Rashford, 2007). Research will show that with equal access to healthcare for everyone in the United States, there would be much more preventative care and therefore the cost for treating chronic diseases could be greatly reduced. The New England Journal of Medicine states that they believe a requirement, in the United States, is broad access to wisely designed programs of health promotion, in which the concept of health promotion is expanded to include a goal of cost reduction. This expanded concept directly addresses the challenge of preventing illness as well as that of reducing health care costs (New England Journal of Medicine, 1993). Did you know that preventable illness makes up for approximately 70% of the burden of illness and the associated costs (New England Journal of Medicine, 1993). Many Americans feel that universal health care is not a role that the government should be involved in however; Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs have been shown to improve health for
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.
Canada’s healthcare system is more accessible than the U.S, because Canada’s healthcare system covers all Canadian citizens as opposed to the U.S. healthcare system which depends on a person’s insurance. The U.S healthcare system is an insurance based system. In 2012, the U.S spent 2.8 trillion on healthcare (). Despite such spending on health care, many U.S. residents had no health insurance and several aggregate measures of health quality and outcomes recorded in the USA were poorer than the corresponding data from other high-income countries. In the U.S. if a citizen does not have insurance they will have to pay out of pocket for normal health care services. These out of pocket costs are usually extremely high. To put it in perspective, 18% of U.S citizens do not have health insurance (Costello,
The question of Universal Healthcare in the United States has valid and non valid arguments with supporters on both sides of the issue. Millions of Americans do not have affordable health care insurance. The main question is who is responsible to provide this? Is it feasible for government to pay for the lack of health care by taxpayer’s dollars? Should you be responsible for yourselves or should you be compensated by the government? Unemployment is at record high making health insurance less attainable or affordable than ever. In most cases, additional restrictions or
The US pays twice as much yet lags other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy, which are among the most widely collected, hence easily compared, international statistics. Many people are underinsured, for example, in Colorado "of those with insurance for a full year, 36.3% were underinsured."[6][7] About 10.7 million insured Americans spend more than a quarter of their annual paychecks on health care because of the high deductible polices.[8]
Health care in America is a serious issue as it involves families that are unable to receive accessible, affordable and quality medical treatment. Middle class or impoverished families are unable to receive the benefits of health care due to low income levels and a volatile economy. Politicians discuss the reformation of the health care system, but people who are uninsured suffer the consequences of a system that overlooks middle class families in favor of wealthy families, a dominant issue for conflict theorists. Some argue that the health care system is not in need of reform and state that
Health insurance in the United States is a highly politicized issue. In recent years, many strides have been made to extend health insurance coverage to all Americans with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). While the program has been vigorously debated in the public realm, arguments are often centered around political ideology rather than economic theory. This paper seeks to challenge the entire structure of the current health insurance model, since its inception in the 1950s. Through the overuse of a third-party payer model, a magnitude of problems have emerged that severely diminish the efficiency of health care allocation in the United States. This paper proposes a model that seeks to correct issues of cost, access, and market efficiency by adapting the Medicare Part D payment scheme for an all encompassing insurance model.
Long time ago, there was no need for health insurance in America, as doctors had many clients because their services were not so expensive and in some cases in rural areas, people could pay by giving other items. Doctors were not as knowledgeable as they are nowadays to care for the sick, therefore this didn't have much effect then on the patients, as they were treated for the basic illnesses.
The US health care system is a mixture of private and public sectors. About 80% of care is provided by the private sector. This includes hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, medical devices and medical research. The biggest price tag by far comes from the medical research aspect. This cost has to be passed down to the consumer of course. About 60% of Americans have health insurance which is provided by their employer. People who get their insurance through their employer don’t get charged more based on prior illness, age or gender. Insurance coverage can range in benefits and coverage, but pretty much cover preventative care, prescriptions, and medical care for illness. There is also a co-pay that needs to be payed this is usually
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.
With the development of public health in U.S., the health insurance coverage has benefited most American citizens. But there is a large ethnic minority group in the U.S. which is most likely to lack coverage, Hispanics. Concerning Latinos with health, there is a barrier for Latinos to get health care. Latinos who are not citizens or permanent residents do not have health insurance, even though PPACA legal non-citizen residents will be able to buy insurance. Without health insurance, Hispanics face health disparities that make them suffer with bad health outcomes and having a higher illness rates.
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)”.
Did you know that in the year of 2012, nearly all of the Americans ages nineteen to sixty-four, which is nearly 85 million Americans that were uninsured? According to healthcareproblems.org , in America healthcare is one of the most talked about and economically challenged problems facing the U.S. today. Health care should be reduced to a reasonable price that which everyone can afford, but people disagree due to laws against it.
Currently, the issue of health insurance has been a bone of contention for the public regarding whether the United States government should provide this health plan or not. People often possess different perspectives and refer to pros and cons on both sides of the spectrum. While some believes a universal healthcare system will set a foundation for a lower quality of service, increasing governmental finance deficit, and higher taxes, others do not hold the same thought. A universal healthcare system brings enormous advantages rather than disadvantages, such as all-inclusive population coverage, convenient accessibility, low time cost, and affordable medical cost, all of which not only provide minimum insurance to the disadvantaged but also improve the efficiency of medical resources distribution.