The American Health Care System

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.

The first characteristic of the US health care system is that there is no central governing agency which allows for little integration and coordination. While the government has a great influence on the health care system, the system is mostly controlled through private hands. The system is financed publically and privately creating a variety of payments and delivery unlike centrally controlled healthcare systems in other developed countries. The US system is more complex and less manageable than centrally controlled health care systems, which makes it more expensive. The second characteristic of the US health care system is that it is technology driven and focuses on acute care. With more usage of high technology,

On March 23, 2010, the President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) which represents the most significant regulatory that impacts the U.S. healthcare systems. With PPACA, 32 millions of Americans are expected the coverage and expanded access to health care and medical care. Due to the baby boomers and the downfall of the economics, there will be millions of people are seeking for low rates medical care which will create great impact on U.S. healthcare. According to Commonwealth Fund analysis, the U.S. healthcare ranks last on every cost-related. Therefore, healthcare becomes the top social and economic problem that American is dealing with. Like all other well-developed countries, there are both private and public insurers in the U.S. health care system. ‘What is unique about the U.S. healthcare system in the world is the dominance of the private element over the public element’ (Chua, 2006). Healthcare system in the Unites States can be divided into three different groups: Medicare, Medicaid, and Managed Care. Each plan provides different coverages for different groups of people.

Primary care is the backbone of many industrialized nations, but is the US one of them? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The US lags behind such developed nations in its accessibility of primary care by a huge difference. The United States healthcare system fails to ensure the timely preventative and primary care for its residents. The current estimates indicate that there is merely one physician for every 2,500 patients. Not only Medicare beneficiaries, but also privately insured adults struggle in accessing the right primary care physician at the right time. Moreover, maldistribution of physicians only exacerbates the problem, especially for those residing in health professional shortage areas (HPSA).15 Approximately, sixty-five million Americans live in designated primary care shortage areas.13 Such underserved population faces higher disease and death rates and health disparities that then result in higher rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits—in other words, expensive medical bills.21 More governmental control on the geographic location of primary care physicians can be a first-step to fixing the shortage problem.

According to Joe Conason, "America 's current health care system wastes considerably more than a trillion dollars every year. We know that because countries such as France, Germany, Japan and Finland, with comparable standards of living to ours, spend roughly half what the United States spends annually on health care per citizen, while covering everyone and achieving better results." (Conason, 2009) The United States healthcare financial systems are severely flawed - affecting the overall cost control, services, and care made accessible to its clients. The rising costs in healthcare are reaching new highs, and with rising costs, there doesn 't seem to be much change in the quality of the care being given. Clients coming in and out of these

In the United States, coverage and reimbursement of prescription drugs are the responsibility of both public and private payers, as opposed to European countries where coverage and reimbursement typically occurs through publicly financed national healthcare systems. CMS, the largest public payer, provides coverage for the vast majority of prescription drugs once they earn approval from the FDA. Prior to making coverage decisions, European jurisdictions typically require that high-risk, innovative, or costly devices undergo a health technology assessment.

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.

How many times have you heard, America has the best health care system in the world? This may be partially true however, Americans are paying the most for health care in the world. Actually, many wonder whether we 'd be better off adopting a universal health care system. The Unites States is the only industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care for its citizens. Many feel the health care system either costs too much, covers too little and virtually makes it impossible to obtain. Somewhere down the road many Americans have seemed to inherit a unique ideology, that health care must be “earned,” no matter how much or how little control a person has over their health status? There is a dark stigma among some that truly

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.

It’s time that people know the truth about the American health care system and the harsh realities that come from associating with a free market health care system. We should also know about the different health care system offered in other industrialized countries. The Documentary “Sicko” shows us the lives of many people American and Non-American and their experiences with healthcare / health services ranging from U.S, Canada, France, England and Cuba. In all these countries, the only one that requires its citizens to pay for health care is the U.S. Health care in the U.S is dominated by the free market and private enterprise / HMO organizations and their thirst for profits, because of this I feel like health care should be owned by the

The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world. It spends

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 healthcare system is one the largest and most complex systems in the world”(Artem Cheprasov, study.com). Healthcare is one of the most important items to provide for an entire nation, yet the US does not have free healthcare. Why you may ask? Well, there has been a long debate to whether the USA should provide free healthcare for all its citizens; however, there hasn’t been a big change to healthcare being provided for everyone. On both sides of argument, there have been logical claims made to create a change for the healthcare system to stay private or become free. I believe that the US should provide healthcare for all its citizens because it would cause less health expenses, less medical bankruptcies and less death’s per year.

Over the past decade we have seen our society become more of a demand society. Many individuals face heavy demands at work and even in their personal lives. Members of our society are always in search of ways to make the most use of the time they have. This has made many businesses change the way they operate to meet the growing demands of our society. Our Healthcare system is one area that I see that continues to change to meet the demands of our society. In the next several years I feel that healthcare will become even more Mcdonalized to meet these growing demands. In this paper I will discuss some of the changes that the healthcare system have been implemented to meet the growing demands of our public.

No single factor explains why health spending has grown at the rate it has over the past decades. Rather, several influences collectively contribute to the situation. As discussed earlier, there was an economic effect o increased demand as a result of increased sources of funds from government and insurance coverage. In addition, increases over the last few years have resulted from several sources. Inflation, which is indicated by the rising consumer price index, has continued to affect all goods and services in the United States, but prices have increased at an even greater rate for healthcare services. Physicians and hospitals account or the greatest proportion o this increase. Expenditures or public health services account for only a little more than 3% of overall spending. Drug costs increased at nearly twice the annual rate of inflation between 2006 and 2010 (Government Accountability Office, 2011). Prices or