The Role Of Public Health And Disease Prevention

Furthermore, the United States spends nearly double the average $3,923 for the 15 countries ("Health Care Cost," 2011).” Accordingly the U.S. throws away more money than any other country on healthcare which consequently could jeopardize the medical attention that is being provided.

The economics of healthcare is not at all simple. What you put in is certainly not necessarily indicative of what you get out, as shown by the striking discrepancy between what we pay and what we get out of our healthcare system. This is demonstrated further by comparing our system to those of France and Italy, who come in first and second, respectively, in WHO’s international ranking of healthcare systems (“World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems”). Counter to what many Americans may believe, a number of European nations do not have completely socialized medicine.

Canada’s healthcare system is more accessible than the U.S, because Canada’s healthcare system covers all Canadian citizens as opposed to the U.S. healthcare system which depends on a person’s insurance. The U.S healthcare system is an insurance based system. In 2012, the U.S spent 2.8 trillion on healthcare (). Despite such spending on health care, many U.S. residents had no health insurance and several aggregate measures of health quality and outcomes recorded in the USA were poorer than the corresponding data from other high-income countries. In the U.S. if a citizen does not have insurance they will have to pay out of pocket for normal health care services. These out of pocket costs are usually extremely high. To put it in perspective, 18% of U.S citizens do not have health insurance (Costello,

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" (1920, C.E.A. Winslow). This therefore infers public health is the preventing and controlling of disease within communities, to prolong life and promote health through organised society. The keys aspects of public health …

The US health care system is a mixture of private and public sectors. About 80% of care is provided by the private sector. This includes hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, medical devices and medical research. The biggest price tag by far comes from the medical research aspect. This cost has to be passed down to the consumer of course. About 60% of Americans have health insurance which is provided by their employer. People who get their insurance through their employer don’t get charged more based on prior illness, age or gender. Insurance coverage can range in benefits and coverage, but pretty much cover preventative care, prescriptions, and medical care for illness. There is also a co-pay that needs to be payed this is usually

How societies pay for health care, and how many resources they devote to health, affects both the care people can get and its quality. In most developed countries, health care is paid for largely by the government or an organization associated with it, using taxes collected from citizens. The United Kingdom, for example, has a “single-payer” system in which the government pays directly for care; in France and Germany, the government collects taxes to fund part of the government health care system, and employers and individuals pay for the remainder of the costs directly. In other countries, such as the United States, a portion of the health care system is marketbased, that is, paid for by private entities such as

The U.S. is an industrialized nation that continues to be behind on providing health care coverage to all citizens. However, the German health care system came up with a plan that ensured all citizens are provided with some form of health care coverage; nevertheless, the U.S. continues to dispute health care reform and how to provide coverage to all citizens. “Health spending per capita in the United States is much higher than in other countries – at least $2,535 dollars, or 51%, higher than Norway, the next largest per capita spender. Furthermore, the United States spends nearly double the average $3,923 for the 15 countries ("Health Care Cost," 2011, table 1)”.

Germany has a market based health system. They have universal health care that covers medical, dental, mental health and even homeopathy. Insurance companies cannot make a profit from insured customers. Therefore, the price for insurance is negotiated between the government and the Insurance provider. Like any other healthcare system there are

As Kimberly Amadeo from The Balance states in her “Universal Health Care In Different Countries, Pros and Cons of Each” article, private healthcare companies target the wealthy. The providers focus on new technologies which result in more expensive services. In countries like France and Italy, their healthcare is entirely paid for through taxes. In the movie, “Where to Invade Next,” Michael Moore shows a diagram of taxes paid in France in comparison to those in the United States. The diagram displays that in France, the taxes are only a little bit higher than those in the United States. However, the French are provided with a lot more services with those tax dollars. The American government does not provide those services, resulting in Americans having to pay more to receive them. Relating to the statements made above, the costs needed to be paid for the services could put someone in debt, which can cause excess

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.

The United States is the only industrialized nation without Universal healthcare coverage. It is privatized with low level of government involvement, however most Americans will receive their coverage through private health insurance, such as employers and individuals leaving over 47.5 Americans without coverage ("Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, 2014 Update: How the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally,"2014). The US sets age and income requirement in order for health care coverage which only leads to an enormous amount of the population without health coverage. This leads to many

Germany’s health care system pays for not only healthcare basics but also dental, optical, mental health. They will also pay for alternative therapies like homeopathy, to go to a spa, and more. The healthcare system is highly accepted by the German population. Pregnant women pay nothing for their care, while most Germans have a co-pay of $15 dollars once every 3 months for their doctor visits (Saul, 2014).

The public health promotes a good strategy for public health in four different aspects. They focus on being population based. They focus on the population with the aims of improving and preventing diseases and promoting good health and since then, have seen changes within the health of the public. People of the public have benefitted from the strategies used to improve the health of the public. For example the percentage for Teenage Pregnancy in the UK had increased rapidly over the years. Public Health directors have been able to focus on this and used strategies to try and help improve this by promoting sex education and teaching in schools about the importance of being protected to help reduce the percentage of teenage pregnancy. This strategy targets a specific population i.e. Teenagers.

The 21st Century has seen the healthcare system struggle with challenges such as an increase in chronic conditions, an increase in government spending on public health, and emerging threats such as global health security and antibiotic resistance. On the positive side, more people have gained access to care. To deal with these emerging issues as well as existing challenges, we need an effective public health workforce. The public health has the role of protecting the health of citizens. This could be through health promotion and lobbying for increased access to care. To address the problem of the rise in chronic ailments, public health has a role of creating awareness on chronic conditions, their symptoms and management. This is because these conditions are expensive to treat and drain the resources of patients and their families. Public health should therefore educate the public on the importance of screening and conduct these screening services for early diagnosis and prevention of chronic diseases. Another role of public health in the 21st Century is to provide and use evidence based practice in providing clinical services. This would help in addressing some of the emerging challenges such as antibiotic resistance.

Infections disease prevention and control and communicable and infectious disease risks are important topics that every student nurse should be exposed to during the nursing program. The impact and threats that these infectious diseases cause an effect on society and global level should be studied. Also, the economic principles to nursing and health care that public health contributes to.