Healthcare Difference Between Us and India Essay

The United States spends much more money than Sweden does for healthcare, and we don't get as much coverage. The differences of our health care is tremendous and this is why.

In The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care (2009), the author of the book, T.R. Reid travels to industrialized democracies to discuss the different methods of health care delivery system used in these developed countries and compare them to the health care system of the United States. According to T.R. Reid (2009), “the thesis of this book is that we can find cost-effective ways to cover every American by borrowing ideas from foreign models of health care” (Reid, 2009, p. 11). This thesis illustrates that the American health care system can manage health care costs effectively and provide care to all by using some of the successful health care delivery models of foreign nations. The purpose of this book analysis is to discuss the four different health care models presented in this book and provide my prioritization or ranking of these models. This analysis also aims to investigate a case known as the Nikki White case described in this book and discuss the lessons learned from it. Furthermore, this analysis is going to provide my remarks on the, “An Apple a Day” comment relative to the Public Health Model. Lastly, in this book analysis, I will share my conclusion on the basic premise of the book along with my take away messages that I will remember into my future as a Public Health professional.

Conklin, T. P. (2002, Fall). Health Care in the United States: An Evolving System. Michigan Family Review, 07(), 5-17. Retrieved from

Health care spending in the United States of America as a percentage of the economy has reached astonishing heights, equating to 17.7 percent. This number is shocking when compared to other counties; in Australia health care is 8.9 percent, in United Kingdom 9.4 percent, in Canada 11.2 percent. If the American health care system were to hypothetically become its own economy, it would be the fifth-largest in the world. While these statistics sound troubling, they lead us to look for answers about the problems surrounding our system. The first health insurance company was created in the 1930s to give all American families an equal opportunity for hospital care and eventually led to a nationwide economic and social controversy that erupted in the 1990s and continued to be shaped by the government, insurance companies, doctors, and American citizens. In this paper, I will go in to detail about the various opinions regarding the controversy, the history behind health insurance companies, and the main dilemmas brought out by the health care crisis. Greedy insurance companies combined with high costs of doctor visits and pharmaceutical drugs or the inefficient hospitals all over America can only describe the beginning to this in depth crisis. Recently, the United States health care industry has become know for the outrageous costs of insurance models, developments of various social and health services programs, and the frequent changes in medicinal technology.

In “The American Health Care Paradox”, Elizabeth H. Bradley and Lauren A. Taylor explore why the American health care system achieves mediocre results, despite spending a higher percentage of its gross domestic product than any other country in the world on health care. They explain that health care is more than just getting medical treatment, but there are social factors that affect a person 's health. The authors claim that more government spending on medical treatments is not the solution to the health care paradox, but we should focus more on social needs that have a greater impact on health. Case studies and interviews with physicians, other health care providers, and social service providers are used to support the authors’ claims. Though the authors do not explicitly state the path they believe the American health care system should follow, they give examples of foreign health care systems and domestic health care projects that may point in the right direction.

The United States health care system is unique among other advanced countries. This system does not have a central governing agency, it is delivered under imperfect market conditions, there are multiple players and payers, and there is no universal health care coverage (Shi & Singh, 2015, p. 9). In a time where healthcare reform is being discussed, it is important for the United States to consider what is proactive as well as what is failing the system. That is what Sick Around The World did; the documentary compared five other countries’ (United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland) healthcare systems to see how they stacked up against the United States.

Yet, our healthcare remain broken and threatens the financial well-being of America in the near future. At the conception of America’s healthcare system, the biggest issues concerning the management of American’s health were the methods of treatment, knowledge sharing among physicians and therapist, the lack of resources at the state and local level, and the true role of the Federal government. (Greg, 2010) The same issues haunt America’s healthcare system unto today. With healthcare cost growing more out of control, the question concerning how to best management America’s health has become increasingly relevant.

Creating a health care reform plan for the U.S. health care system is no easy task. Multiple things must be taken into consideration. These include making insurance affordable, making sure the plan is economically feasible, and creating a plan that will still work in the future. What hindered the reshaping of health care into a sustainable system in the past, are the health sectors interests that prefer the status quo. By continuing to cling on to yesterday’s model, the health care industry is creating its own peril (Schaeffer, 2007).

In The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, T.R. Reid, a Washington Post reporter and NPR commentator, compares the United States’ health care system to the systems of other industrialized democracies. In this journey, he analyzes costs, quality, and overall functioning of the different systems. Through his first hand experiences around the globe, Reid illustrates a variety of systems, emphasizing the changes America needs.

Bohmer, R., & Knoop, C. I. (2007). The challenges facing the U.S. healthcare delivery system. Harvard Business School, Article 9-606-096.

The healthcare system in America started as a predominantly volunteer system where patients were required to pay little to nothing for treatment. Since it began, the healthcare industry has seen tremendous changes that have transformed it into a business entity which has operations like financial management, strategic planning and functional specialties to keep the industry viable. The industry is one of the largest in the country employing 15 million people with a projected increase of jobs with 3 million jobs annually. As the healthcare industry continues growing, services and personnel are changing, and various dynamics are coming into play to accommodate changes (Smith, Saunders, Stuckhardt, & McGinnis, 2013).

Some hospitals have merged with other healthcare organizations in hopes of providing a more integrated delivery system. However, delivery in many organizations is still quite fragmented leaving many US citizens dissatisfied. According to a 2011 survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund;

Healthcare in the contemporary United States emerges from a long and sordid history that began in the late 1800s when the fight for universal health care came on the heels of the formation of systems that ranged from rudimentary to comprehensive in various European countries including Germany, Norway, Britain, Russia, and the Netherlands (Palmer, 1999). Most of these programs were formed as “a means of maintaining incomes and buying political allegiance”, as conservative governments, primarily in Britain and Germany, worked to stem the flow of the burgeoning socialist and labor parties (Palmer, 1999). During this same time brought a greater transparency of the experiences of industry workers and the “nightmare” conditions they were enduring

Everyone has their own views on what they think the United States healthcare system should consist of. Consequently, the healthcare system has been flawed for many years and does not plan to change anytime soon. According to Luft (2006), “rapid and wide-reaching technological innovation, the ready access to care for the insured, and clinical and patient autonomy” (p.1). These are some of the strengths the US healthcare system are proficient in providing. In contrast, the weaknesses of the healthcare system outweigh the system’s strengths. Luft (2006) examined and acknowledged the following:

Despite the documented challenges that the U.S. health care system faces, it also enjoys a number of advantages over other systems around the world.