The High Quality Of Health Care

“There are three basic goals for a National Health Care System; 1) keeping people healthy, 2) treating the sick and 30 protecting families against financial ruin from medical bills”, (Physicians for a National Health Program, 2016). No truer statement could there possibly be written or proclaimed as there is a crisis in healthcare costs across the United States. United States, one of the most developed western country, yet we suffer from – higher infant mortality rates, have shorter life spans and are affected by more chronic disease and or illness – than our contemporaries all while spending the most for insurance per capita and less annual doctor visits with less physicians, (OECD Health Data 2015). There is a question to be answered, “why”, why are we trailing our contemporaries and more important than that is, is our National Health Care system really working for us? The year 2010 was the beginning of change in the United States where we transitioned from primarily private insurance and welfare to a universal healthcare model, under President Obama with the signing into Law of the Affordable Health Care Act March of 2010. The purpose of the Affordable health care act is to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable healthcare, however in 2016 we are still questioning we’ve been successful based on funding, government sponsored healthcare programs, effects on the current HCO, elderly, military and accessibility.

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.

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.

As the world’s richest and most powerful nation, the United States sets itself apart from other countries on a range of issues. Some of these issues are worth celebrating, while others highlight how this country continues to lag other developed countries. No issue demonstrates this divide more clearly than our lack of universal healthcare. Touted as the best system in the world by supporters, when compared with other rich nations, we continue to spend more but have lower outcomes. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, attempted to address many of the problems with the current system; however it does not go far enough. To further improve outcomes and lower costs we must establish a universal single-payer system.

In this article a physician named Bennie G.P. Lindeque, describes the flaws of the American health care system, shows what the health care system in other modern countries are like, and uses this evidence to show that the American healthcare system is in dire need of reform. Lindeque says that American healthcare is disastrous and he uses facts to back his claim. For example, he shows that the World Health Organization ranks the American healthcare system 37th in the world. He also shows how the U.S. spends more on its healthcare than all other developed nations while covering a much lesser amount of people than other nations. One of the modern nations that Lindeque takes a look at is the United Kingdom which runs a single payer healthcare

The most industrialized countries in the world have long since made the decision to provide universal healthcare coverage, yet the United States still lags behind in this department. What people of a country should expect and feel reassured of is that if and when they fall ill, they will receive the proper care necessary to get better without the worry of being denied care or face bankruptcy for doing receiving medical care.2

According to the World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems the United States ranks at number 37 overall and is the only wealthy industrialized nation that doesn 't have a universal healthcare system. If this is to be fixed we need to take a look at other countries systems and learn how to improve conditions. This paper is going to talk about five countries; Spain, Germany, Canada, Cuba, and the United States. These countries cover a wide variety of healthcare systems. According to most lists America has the worst health care of these countries so it should try to learn from these countries to improve itself.

The United States is considered by many to be the greatest country in the world. However, when it comes to health care the US is ranked behind 36 other countries, according to the World Health Organization. If one was to do any research at all, they would find that an overwhelming 34 of these 36 countries all have one thing in common. They all use a universal health care system. This is not just a mere coincidence. The problems and outrageous cost within the US healthcare system causes over 700,000 Americans to go bankrupt every year. This staggering problem simply does not occur in any other industrialized countries. Accounting for these facts the United States needs to move quickly to embrace

The United States system of healthcare when compared with healthcare systems in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan is far more expensive, is notably inefficient, leaves 47 million people uninsured, and forces "hundreds of thousands of people into bankruptcy," according to a PBS video "Sick Around the World." This paper compares the current U.S. healthcare system which at the moment is undergoing a difficult transition into the Affordable Care Act with the healthcare programs in the above-mentioned countries.

According to Squires and Chloe, the United States of America is considered as the greatest country in the world, with the largest economy, military powers, freedom of religion and speech, and one of the most successful democrats (2). However, the United States in the only western modernized nation that does not offer free healthcare services to all its citizens. Apparently, the costs of the healthcare services to the uninsured individuals in the US are prohibitive, where the insurance companies are interested in making higher profit margins than providing adequate health care to the insured (Squires and Chloe 4). These conditions are unexpectable and incompatible with the United States

Despite recent changes that have slightly improved the proficiency and productivity of the American health care system, it continues to be a deficient and muddled operation that damages both the lives and livelihoods of those that depend on its competence. Rather than looking to the efficient systems established by the majority of the developed world, The United States still clings to its archaic and incompetent model of privately controlled health care. This has created a structure where, despite paying nearly twice that of other western countries, the life expectancy and quality of treatment is either the same, or inferior. We spend more tax money per capita than many other nations, spend more as private individuals, and still experience mediocre outcomes that often result in bankruptcy for the person or family attempting to receive proper care (Squires, 2015). Instead of this abhorrent example of incompetence and instability, The United States should switch to a single-payer health care system.

By looking at international examples, one can find numerous areas in which the American system (or systems) fails in comparison to universal systems. Across our northern border we find a neighbor with universal health care as well as better access to care. Seven percent of Americans and less than 1% of Canadians were prevented from care because of financial reasons. U.S. residents are a third less likely to have a regular physician, a fourth more likely to not meet medical needs, and twice as likely to forgo needed medicine. Across the board, uninsured Americans have less access to care as well as less satisfaction regarding their care (Himmelstein, Lasser, and Woolhandler 1303). In comparison to our northern neighbor, who has similar culture and values, we can see a universal health care system would drastically improve our access to care. Even if a comparison isn’t enough, one can see the impacts of universal health care in Taiwan, where a National Health Insurance model was recently implemented. Over the implementation of the system, hospital admission rates increased from 110 admissions per 1,000 people in 1994 to 120 admission in 1996 (Lu and Hsiao 80-81). Looking back to comparisons, the argument holds true with other countries as well. In a World Health Organization rating of quality and fairness, the US

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.

In 2000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) generated the annual report of which the theme was the health care system performance all over the world (WHO, 2000). This report specifically analysed the performance of the healthcare systems of 191 countries and ranked based on a lot of criteria. Surprisingly, the French health care system was ranked the first place for the overall performance. Since then, the discussion and debate around the French health care system has never ended. The favours would like to propagate the insurance coverage and the financing mechanism while the

The current state of United States’ health care system is one of the most polarizing subjects of debate among scholars and other health care professionals across the globe. This can be attributed to the fact that at one extreme end, there are some who argue that that Americans have the best system of health care in the world (MePhee, 2013). Perhaps the availability of the state-of-the-art facilities and free medical technology that have become highly symbolic of the various industries in the United States have motivated the idea of the country’s health care system being unparalleled to others. However, there is a common belief that the fight for universal health care can only be successful if its current state of health care is described as a failure in the modern era as emphasized by MePhee (2013).