The Public Health Care System

A national health care system in the United States has been a contentious topic of debate for over a century. Social reformists have been fighting for universal health care for all Americans, while the opposition claims that a “social” heath care system has no place in the ‘Land of the Free’.

Over the course of our countries history, the delivery of our health care system has tried to meet the needs of our growing and changing population. However, we somehow seem to fall short in delivering our goals of providing quality, affordable and accessible healthcare to our citizens. The history of our delivery system will show we continuously changed the delivery of our system however never mange to control cost. If we can come up with efficient ways to cut cost, the delivery of quality care will follow.

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,

The entities Comprising the Public Health Infrastructure include: County and city health departments and local boards of health - State, territorial, and island nation health departments - Various U.S. Public Health Service agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - Tribal health agencies coordinated at HHS by the Indian Health Service - Public and private laboratories - Hospitals and other private-sector healthcare providers - Volunteer organizations, such as the American Red Cross, American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society.

Healthcare has progressed immensely throughout human civilization. From dancing to scare away evil spirits, to growing living organs in laboratories. No matter how advanced or archaic the treatment, we all as humans strive for the continuation of our life. As populations grew, organized healthcare delivery became a critical component to a healthy society. Many approaches to delivering healthcare to a large population have been created, but one variable remains constant in any solution to healthcare. Healthcare costs money. A lot of money. And someone has to pay, but where the differences between

The Washington Post reported on June 16, “Once again, the United States has most the expensive, least effective health care system in survey.” It’s apparent that the United States healthcare system is in an economic crisis. Furthermore, the United States healthcare system is not only in economic turmoil, but the social systems currently in place offer little to no future economic resolve for the predicament we are currently situated in. The paradox that seems to have fallen upon American healthcare is that, “The system doesn’t want you to die, but at the same time doesn’t want you to get well.” Heineman (2012) It is bad business. In other words, medicine is a business and I have witnessed this approach towards business in medicine first hand in my over five years of clinical and business experience in the medical field.

Our healthcare system needs major restructuring. Major improvements needs to begin with "all health care organizations, professional groups, and private and public purchasers should adopt as their explicit purpose to continually reduce the burden of illness, injury, and disability, and to improve the health and functioning of the people of the United States", (Crossing the ……, 2001).

Financing health services in the United States is very important and involves an excessive amount of health institutions and activities. Health services are supported by several methods to create revenue that most hospital, clinics, and treatment centers use for daily operational costs (World Health Organization, 2006). These methods are: general taxation of the state, county, or township/municipality, Medicare or Medicaid or other socialized health insurance plans, voluntary and private health insurance and lastly, donations to health charities accepted from non-profit organizations, donations

The United States government has worked to promote public health with the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953, Medicare/Medicaid programs and the Health Planning and Resource Development Act of 1974 however these were focused on protecting the public from outbreaks of infections, than on more serious medical care prevention from illnesses/disease management (Williams & Torrens, 2008). The U.S. public health has a narrowly focused its energies on the amelioration of social interventions through the collecting of vital statistics, controlling communicable disease, sanitation, laboratory services, maternal, infant and child health services and health education (Goldberg, 2012). However, due to its limited focus and policy, the public health sector has not address the medical care required for individual diagnosing and prevention of social determents of health, diagnosis and treatment of chronic disease. The broad definition of public health would ensure the public had adequate access to personal health but until the Affordable Care Act those services were limited. Furthermore, medical care was limited by health care providers who were focused on treatment of disease not long term preventive health due to the reimbursement model utilized (Williams & Torrens,

Is there only one answer to forming a perfect healthcare system? The healthcare system is in desperate need of a transformation, but what is the right answer? Do we look to other countries for answers? Should we model our healthcare after other countries? Should the government control the care that a patient receives and dictate what treatment plans are available?

Although we live in one of the richest countries in the world, there are over 39 million Americans with no health insurance coverage. The current health care system mandates individuals purchase health insurance coverage from private insurance companies to access healthcare systems. Access to comprehensive health care should not be considered a commodity because health is fundamental to the well-being of individuals. Further, society (government) must accept the responsibility to ensure access to affordable health care. Therefore, I believe the government should take the responsibility of becoming the sole provider of health insurance coverage and not private corporations. This goal will give the federal government full

I think the number one challenge facing the United States of America today is our health care system and its policies. Before talk about the issues we face today, we must talk about how it is formed and its components. The healthcare system in USA is a mix of private and public components. Almost all healthcare facilities are owned and controlled by private sector. Some hospitals are non-profit, others are owned by the government and others are run by private organizations. Between 60-70% are non-profit hospitals while the others are for-profit. A lot of positions worked for private organizations but are not employed by the public sector. Other component in the private sector included pharmaceutical and medical devices companies research that are paid by both public and private sectors. How our country give citizens access to their systems? Around 50 million of people (over half are African American) are uninsured and this means that they have to pay out of their pocket to receive care. At least 25 million of those who are insured have the inadequate insurance coverage because of high deductibles and copays. This represent a failing to an immense amount of citizens of the United States because they aren 't receiving a decent care or the care they need. Around 60% of USA citizens receive health insurance from their employers. Generally the plans offered don 't charge people different amounts based on factors such as race, gender, age and medical history. In addition, near 15%

In this paper there will be a brief discussion of three forces that have affected the development of the U.S healthcare system. It will observe whether or not these forces will continue to have an effect on the U.S healthcare system over the next decade. This paper will also include an additional force, which may be lead to believe to have an impact on the health care system of the nation. And lastly this paper will evaluate the importance of technology in healthcare.

The healthcare system in the developing countries is facing significant challenges. Despite the high expenditure on health, it has been noted that weak systems and facilities that do not have resources are contributing to poor health outcomes. With the challenges that are affecting the healthcare system in the developing nations, the information technology presents a good solution (Cline & Luiz, 2013). The information technology has the potential to improve the healthcare system by reducing the costs and ensuring that there are efficiencies in the healthcare system. The major trends in the developed health systems are automation and proper business management. The potential to reduce complexities in the healthcare system lies in the ability to reduce the excessive use of paperwork as well as the provision of information to support the healthcare systems (Cline & Luiz, 2013).

Given the fact that the United states of America and Canada are linked together sharing a border which is open basically to and from both sides, their health care systems are highly different from each other and how the services are financed, organized and given to the citizens.