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The New Zealand Healthcare System Essay

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Signature Assignment In comparison to other developed nations, the United States spends more of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care expenses than any other nation. In 2009, the US spent 16% of its GDP on the health care industry. This represents nearly double the amount spent by other OECD nations (an average of 8.7%) and came in 40 percent higher than the next highest nation, France, which had an 11.2% of GDP outlays on health care expenditures. If we examine these costs at an individual level the US spent $7,538 per capita (per person) on health care. This was more than double the OECD median for expenditures which was $2,995. Again the next highest nations were considerably less than the US, with Norway and …show more content…

This left about 15 percent of the population or 46 million residents without any coverage (The Commonwealth Fund, 2010). Further compounding the situation is the fact that the US has an overall trend of lower health outcomes when compared to other OECD nations. Studies have found that a variety of factors contribute to lower health outcomes. These factors range from income, race and insurance status. Another challenging fact is that one the fast growing segments of the US population are individuals who are highly vulnerable to illness. These individuals are faced with very difficult medical needs that are constrained by social and other factors. Of this population racial and ethnic minorities constitute the largest percentage how have multiple chronic co-morbidities and chronic illnesses. From 2000 to 2010 the rates of chronic disease for Hispanics increased 42.4% and for blacks it increased 51.6%. At the same time these members of the population are the least likely to have health insurance (Vanderbilt, et al., 2013). So in a sense there is a perfect storm in place where costs for health care expenses are high and continue to rise, there is a large pool of uninsured individuals who often receive the bare minimum of survival care as charitable write offs by providers, and the overall quality of the health of Americans is poor –- which creates a vicious self fulfilling circle leading to more

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