The United States Health Care System

United States is the largest and most diverse society on the globe. It spends almost 2 trillion dollars every year on health care, which is one in every seven dollars in the economy. U.S is one of the very few nations where all its citizens do not have medical coverage. Although it spends heavily on per capita on health care, and it has the most advanced medical technology system in the world, still it is not the healthiest nation on earth. The system performs so poorly that it leaves 50 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered (Garson, 2010).

The U.S. Health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance.” (WHO, 2000, p. 1) Progression in the United States has not kept up with the advances in other wealthy nations dealing with the population health. Disease and chronic disability report almost 50% of America health problem (JAMA, 2013).

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,

According to the Garber & Skinner (2008), the United States spends more on health care than other nations but continues to score below other nations in numerous areas of measurement. These scores in, consideration with amount spent, suggest that healthcare is the United States is inefficient. Additionally, the United States has a significantly large portion of under

Primary care is the backbone of many industrialized nations, but is the US one of them? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The US lags behind such developed nations in its accessibility of primary care by a huge difference. The United States healthcare system fails to ensure the timely preventative and primary care for its residents. The current estimates indicate that there is merely one physician for every 2,500 patients. Not only Medicare beneficiaries, but also privately insured adults struggle in accessing the right primary care physician at the right time. Moreover, maldistribution of physicians only exacerbates the problem, especially for those residing in health professional shortage areas (HPSA).15 Approximately, sixty-five million Americans live in designated primary care shortage areas.13 Such underserved population faces higher disease and death rates and health disparities that then result in higher rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits—in other words, expensive medical bills.21 More governmental control on the geographic location of primary care physicians can be a first-step to fixing the shortage problem.

With these outstanding evidences the Commonwealth Fund placed United States last in terms of overall health system ranking measured by different categories of access to care, equity, quality, efficiency and healthy lives compared to other developed countries. Among those rank categories, our health system is specifically placed last in access to care and efficiency. 37% of the adults in United States reported that they did not receive the recommended treatment, surgery or follow up care due to high cost. 40% of adults who had visited emergency room reported that they could have instead just visited a regular doctor if it was available. U.S. was also ranked last in infant mortality rate and amount of deaths preventable through timely access to healthcare.

In 1998, the United States devoted 13% of its economy to health care, and this figure rose to 16% by 2008. However, despite this rise in government expenditure on health care, outcomes for patients remained the same (Obama, 2016). The quality of the health care system in general was not great; health care

A highly effective healthcare system is highly dependent upon the ability of all people to receive reliable care that meets all needs. In addition to this, the quality of the healthcare system should be backed by the best scientific knowledge available. However, a closer introspection into the structure of healthcare in the nation reveals that there is big gap with regards to the overall performance of healthcare. In comparisons to

It also ranks 37th out of the world’s 191 countries in overall health care efficiency according to the World Health Organization. Although this ranking may appear decent at first glance, it becomes apparent that the current system is broken given the context that the “U.S. [spends] more per person on health care than 12 other high-income nations” (The Commonwealth Fund). These twelve countries include Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

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.

Despite being one of the best healthcare systems in the world, United States healthcare system lacks the ability to reach the poor of the country. Most of it is attributed to the high costs of healthcare facilities. Also, part of it is contributed to the complex system of healthcare developed over decades. Different stakeholders such as states, government, hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. look out for individual profits and benefits rather than the primary consumer, the

Throughout the world, many different healthcare systems exist. The number one system in the world is France. Unfortunately, the United States does not rank very high on the list at number thirty-seven out of fifty different nations. Many larger and smaller countries are ranked higher than the United States. However, it is important to compare these different systems in order to find an ideal system that can improve population health, improve individual care, and reduce the cost. Japan is ranked number nine. Although this system has its own pros and cons, it is still ranked high on the scale of different healthcare systems.

Health Care System is the maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health, especially through the provision of medical services. America is the 37th ranked country which provided better health care, according to the World Health Organization. Although, United States spends more money on Healthcare than other countries still, this country was not in a better place in the Healthcare system compared to the western countries. American performance management of the Health Care system was instantly lacking which is why America was in the last place compared to the other countries, however, The Affordable Act helped the United States to move out from the last place by giving the Health Insurance to 50 million lower class people

In 1998, the Commonwealth Fund started supporting an analysis that deals with cross-national health structures. The study was based on the OECD health care statistics and aimed at placing the USA health system performance in a global context to derive reliable lessons for the policymakers and leaders in the nation’s health care department to follow (Schiff, 2010). For example, the OECD results of 2006 indicated that, based on both the percentage of GDP and per capita ratio, the U.S health care department utilized more funds/resources compared to those in the majority of the industrialized countries. Moreover, an OECD analysis of 2002/03 indicated that the U.S.A had the peak mortality rate when compared to other nineteen OECD member nations (Schiff, 2010).

The US prides to be one of the largest economies in the world. Even in terms of health expenditure, it has the highest healthcare expenditure. However, the US lies among the most developed nations that do not provide healthcare for all people. It is known that healthy people cause less costs to the economy when compared to sick people. The issue of the healthcare costs is one of the significant challenges that are facing the US healthcare system. However, there are a lot of efforts that are being made, in a bid to cut the costs of healthcare in the US system.