Policy Paper
Choice of policy
In the last two decades, there have been countless debates on the need to reform the United States of American health care system. The reform is to enable a more comprehensive system that will address pressing issues such as the growing number of uninsured American. The USA is one of the leading countries when in to healthcare and its systems. It is also the country with the most spending when it comes to healthcare. According to an article published in the commonwealth fund, the United States health care system is found to be the most expensive in the world, but it also shows the U.S. underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance (Davis, Stremikis, Squires, & Schoen, 2014).
The United States can boast of being the country with the best technology in the health industry, the best expertise and also the best infrastructures. However, these services are not readily available to all due to the relative cost and mostly lack of health insurance. In some situations, the health insurance may be available but coverage is limited and with tentacles of restrictive clauses. For years these have been the measure of our healthcare system and long overdue overhaul that became eminent via the Obama Care in 2010 also known as the affordable care act. The rapidly rising health care costs over the decades have prompted the application of business practices to medicine with goals of improving the efficiency, restraining
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
It is highly visible that the United States lacks an affordable, universal health care plan. Compared to other countries America is lagging behind. The improvement of access to care has become of high importance to the betterment of society and the country’s health care outcome. This paper will describe the three major problems that exist in the United States health care. In addition, it will explore the proposed health care plans of two 2016 presidential candidates and the position they take in regards the big issues.
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.
According to the Garber & Skinner (2008), the United States spends more on health care than other nations but continues to score below other nations in numerous areas of measurement. These scores in, consideration with amount spent, suggest that healthcare is the United States is inefficient. Additionally, the United States has a significantly large portion of under
However, prior to the existence of the ACA, the American healthcare system left a lot to be desired and still today leaves room for improvement. The basic issues underlying efforts to improve the United States (US) health care system remain, as they have for decades, concerns for costs, access, and quality (Sultz, 2006). Even though knowledge, technology, and
Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.Health care costs are far higher in the United States than in any other advanced nation, whether measured in total dollars spent, as a percentage of the economy, or on a per capita basis. And health costs here have been rising significantly faster
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 data presented by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US health care cost exceeded $ 8,000 per capita, in 2010, comparing to the next most expensive system (Norway) $5,000 per capita (OECD Health Data, 2012). Despite being the most expensive system in the word, US healthcare system has failed on many areas of performance and quality. According to OECD data, US has much lower life expectancy than other industrialized countries, also the infant mortality rate is higher than those countries. Moreover, the US is the only industrialized country that does not provide its citizens a protection of a universal health care coverage.
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
What does America have to show for all the money it is spending on health care? It wouldn’t be unreasonable to speculate that the U. S. would have the lowest infant mortality, the highest life expectancy, and the most efficient health care in the world. Unfortunately, however, that is not the case. The United States according to the same article, ranks 46th out of 48th in health care efficiency, Serbia and Brazil are the only two ranking lower. Infant mortality and life expectancy in the United States rank 167thand 44th out of 224 respectivelyaccording to the CIA World Factbook (2015). Additionally, approximately 15 percent of people in the U.S. are still uninsured. The return on investment in health care needs to have better results; a system that provides the highest quality care that leaves no one out.
The United States (US) cost of health is higher than other countries. The population health status has improved but more work needs to be done. However, in 2007 the US spent $7,290 per capital on health care. In the early 1990’s health care spending was $714 billion by 2007 the spending was 2.2 trillion dollars (Berryman, Palmer, Kohl, & Parham, 2013).
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
United States of America (USA) is a leader in healthcare spending (Holtz, 2013). The cost of the healthcare per capital is the highest in the world. The USA pays about $5267 per person annually for healthcare (Holtz, 2013). Insurance-based healthcare system is not working to the fullest potential, and this system is not cost-effective. Even though Americans have a variety of coverage options such as out-of-pocket, private insurance, Medicaid, and Medical, the money spent on medicine does not ease the financial burden of the population. However, it is not inappropriate to compare the USA with developing
The U.S. Health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance.” (WHO, 2000, p. 1) Progression in the United States has not kept up with the advances in other wealthy nations dealing with the population health. Disease and chronic disability report almost 50% of America health problem (JAMA, 2013).
While the U.S. health care system has much to brag about, there is still room for significant improvement. When we compare ourselves to other industrialized countries (for example, Canada and Great Britain), this gives us something to aim for and seek improvements in our current system. “Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIPs), and Affordable Care Act (ACA-Obamacare) marketplace subsidies — together accounted for 25% of the U.S. Federal Budget in 2015, or $938 billion. Nearly two-thirds of this amount, or $546 billion, went to Medicare, which provides health coverage to around 55