The Health Care System Of The United States Essay

The challenge America now faces is the number of people reaching retirement will double in number by 2030, and the U.S. population will increase almost 20 percent ("Our Aging Nation," 2015). The goal is for the elderly to maintain and live with independence and dignity, as well as, provide a wide range of professional health and social service expertise, home care, and residential support and services that will be needed ("Our Aging Nation," 2015). Since the number of caregivers needed for this population will not be able to meet the demands other resolutions are considered necessary.

The U.S. health care system is way more complex than what meets the eye. A major difference between the health care system in the U.S. and other nations, is that the U.S. does not have universal health care. Lack of a universal health care opens up the doors for competition amongst insurance, physicians, technology, hospitals and outpatient services.

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.

Current numbers show substantial growth from the eighties, and estimates suggest that the demand for long term care among the elderly will more than double in the next thirty years. (Feder, Komisar, and Niefeld) This growth will exacerbate concerns about balancing institutional and noninstitutional care, assuring quality of care, and most importantly adopting and sustaining financing mechanisms that equitably and adequately protect the elderly who need long-term care.

as defensive medicine practice, new technology, malpractice lawsuit and the uninsured. New technology is the biggest factor of the rising cost of healthcare to treated patient of their illness. New technologies have seemed to be the driving force of high healthcare cost in America. The technology accounts for 38 to 65 percent of healthcare spending in America (Johnson, 2011). The annual spending of health care increased from 75 billion in 1970 to 2.0 trillion in 2005 and is estimated to reach 4.0 trillion in 2015 (Kaiser Foundation, 2013). U.S. citizens spent 5,267 per capita for health care in 2002- 53 percent more than any other country” (2005). “America spent 5267 per capita and in Switzerland they spent 3074 per capita” about 1821 cheaper than ours (Starfield, B 2010). Controlling the technology isn’t easy thing to do because of technology prices are set by manufacturing and the installer of the new medical equipment’s. However, there other way

Taking care of the individuals that are getting older takes many different needs. Most of these needs cannot be given from the help of a family. This causes the need of having to put your love one into a home and causing for the worry of how they will be treated. It is important for the family and also the soon to be client to feel at home in their new environment. This has been an issue with the care being provided for each individual, which has lead to the need of making sure individuals have their own health care plan.

The baby-boomer generation is aging and adding more beneficiaries’ at an increasing rate than ever before and is estimated to impact the federal deficit by over 17% by 2020. Many other countries have National Healthcare that provides better care at a much lower cost. Medicare was the motivation for a universal healthcare plan and a program for the U.S. could have a positive impact. (Starr, 2011).

Life expectancy has increased over the last century. With this greater survival rate, there needs to be an increase in the rate of spending for Medicare. Despite what one does to improve their health behavior, the need for medical care cultivates as one ages. This need will continue to increase significantly as medicine continues to modernize.

The United States health care system is lacking the needs to create a reliable system to achieve quality, access, cost, and educate for the consumers. Despite the efforts of the government to find a common ground to meet the standard for the societies, the system has yet to have a major improvement. These issues must be reexamined to fix the broken system. The United States health care expenditure is another issue that needs to be addressed to achieve the future goals of the healthcare system in the United States. Healthcare societies will need to interact differently by incorporating consumer’s empowerment, technology, and education to meet the future goals of the health care system. Also, the consumer must be highly educated on the purpose of preventive care to lower the risk of chronic diseases which account for a lot health care spending. The process of correcting the United States health care system will take time and effort from all individual to achieve greatness.

The challenges and impact of Baby Boomers on long-term care systems are going to modify the manner in which traditional health care, patient access, financial payments and treatment are delivered. Baby Boomers will have an extensive amount of care maintenance needs involving various rehabilitation conditions, acute and chronic illnesses, which will require a significant amount of thoroughly trained gerontologists, skilled nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, community advocates, and family involvement. This article explores options sought to reduce the costs to society and Baby Boomers as innovative savings, tax credit options, and other alternative long-term care financing choices lessening the impact on the long-term care system.

Baby boomer aging is one of the large causative factors of this increase in demand (Glicken & Miller, 2013, p.1883-1889). According to Glicken & Miller (2013), the elderly population will nearly double in the next fifteen years putting a strain on the healthcare workforce. Also, more than half of physicians have intentions on limiting care access with regards to Medicare patients. Many medical doctors are refusing to care for Medicaid patients. This is a result of the growing number of individuals now with the means to afford healthcare due to the

As this baby-boomer generation continues to age there will be profound effects on the way that money is spent on health care and insurance. With approximately 77 million people turning 65 over the next several years, the amount of government spending on Medicare will greatly increase (Gigante, 2012). Thus, the demand for medical care associated with the aging population will so

One dominant economic feature of the healthcare industry is the growing need for both basic and specialized healthcare due to the continued aging of the “Baby Boomer” generation. This generation consists of over 79,000,000 individuals born in the US between 1946 and 1964. As this generation has aged, the need for healthcare has increased dramatically. Let us take a look at some statistics:

It is widely believed that the aging of the U.S. population is a major driver of the annual growth in the demand for health care and in national health spending

The growing concern regarding the financial security of Medicare is one of particular interest to the nearly 72 million baby boomers that become eligible for this government-assisted, and tax-payer bolstered, program over the next two decades. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2010), there will be a rapid increase in baby-boomers between 2010 and 2030, as the entire baby boomer population move into the 65 years and over category (p.3). Political and financial revisions must be made to ensure the security of Medicare as the numbers of individuals paying into this program are soon to be surpassed by the number of individuals drawing-off this program (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The elderly are also at a disadvantage with transportation to health care visits, picking up prescriptions, and rehabilitation services. There needs to be an establishment of access not only to primary care providers, hospitals, and rehabilitation services, but access to other aspects of the health care system for the elderly population.