The United States Healthcare System

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,

On March 23, 2010, the President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) which represents the most significant regulatory that impacts the U.S. healthcare systems. With PPACA, 32 millions of Americans are expected the coverage and expanded access to health care and medical care. Due to the baby boomers and the downfall of the economics, there will be millions of people are seeking for low rates medical care which will create great impact on U.S. healthcare. According to Commonwealth Fund analysis, the U.S. healthcare ranks last on every cost-related. Therefore, healthcare becomes the top social and economic problem that American is dealing with. Like all other well-developed countries, there are both private and public insurers in the U.S. health care system. ‘What is unique about the U.S. healthcare system in the world is the dominance of the private element over the public element’ (Chua, 2006). Healthcare system in the Unites States can be divided into three different groups: Medicare, Medicaid, and Managed Care. Each plan provides different coverages for different groups of people.

America: The Land of the Free. Or, as someone who is familiar with the US health care system would call it, America: The Land of Overpriced Health Care That Covers a Fraction of it’s People. The US spends more money on their health care than any other country, yet there is a myriad of problems that exist within the system preventing it from being efficient. Billions of dollars are poured into the system for medication and treatment, when a lot of this spending is unnecessary.

The cost of healthcare has and will continue to rise in the United States. Some factors that contribute to those hikes are due to the consumer demanding more complex services from health care providers. Things such as new technology, equipment, research and testing procedures, along with pharmacy, and the number of uninsured are all dynamics of the increased cost in health care. The U.S. health care system relies heavily on third-party payers; these payers include commercial insurers and the Federal and state governments. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, the National Health Expenditure grew 3.6% to $2.9 trillion in 2013, or $9,255 per person, and accounted for 17.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Id.

The world as we know it has changed drastically in the past three decades, we are slowly but surely morphing into a worldwide community dependent upon computer technology. More specifically we rely on the Internet heavily for everything in our day to day lives. The benefits of expediency and the convenience afforded to those who utilize information systems their business dynamics is undeniable.

The United States health care system may be unique in being a true melting pot of cultures, ethnicities, and races. Health care and maintenance of one’s health is a necessity of life, regardless of ethnic, social, or cultural background. The cultural landscape of America is a constantly changing as evidenced by some projections stating by the year 2045 that non-Hispanic Caucasians will represent less than 50% of the U.S. population for the first time (Alba, 2015). However, this estimate may actually be inaccurate due to the numerous American families that already incorporate multiple racial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. Nurse anesthetists that provide anesthesia for surgery are exposed to a myriad of cultures and all the differences that come with them. These many differences may affect how an anesthetist interacts with their patients, may cause a simple procedure to become a more challenging one, or it may also affect an anesthetist own beliefs and how that approach a case.

Health care systems are organizations that are formed to meet the overall health needs of the population. Health care is regarded as one of the leading cause in promoting not only physical and mental health but the well-being of the population. Legislation is implemented requiring government to offer services to all members of its society. The role of health services and the organizations that provide aid is to focus on the health of an individual and to uphold their human rights. According to WHO (2013), a “well-functioning health care system requires a robust financing mechanism, a well-trained and adequately-paid workforce, reliable information on which to base decisions and policies, and well maintained facilities and logistics to deliver quality medicines and technologies (World Health Organization; 2013).

When you think of the American health care system, most people would like to think that it has evolved with the citizen’s best interest in mind. I realized maybe this was not the case after the story I heard from my sister. My sister has dealt with many health problems throughout her whole life from childhood leukemia to extensive back problems and most recently a serious heart condition. She was experiencing shortness of breath and was referred to a specialist to get further testing and imaging done to figure out what the problem was. Her insurance coverage was through the Affordable Care Act but it did not actually help her. Although she is covered, her deductible is through the roof at $12,000 a year. That was the best policy she and her husband could afford as they own their own company and some years barely scrape by. She was unable to get testing to find the problem because the test itself was $10,000 and would have been money out of their pocket which they could not afford. While we see many improvements in the healthcare field, this made it clear to me that it does not actually benefit everyone to the best of its ability. While as citizens we would like to think that the Affordable Care Act has benefited everyone and made health care better, there are still many issues that persist and changes that need to be made. The actual advantages of the system on paper sound great but in the long run, the functionality of the system doesn’t make sense and isn’t beneficial.

This study has also covered the weaker aspects of the prevailing American healthcare system. The financial basis of healthcare improvement lay in enhanced business savvy on the part of the administrators and providers of healthcare. It is the lack of healthcare and business savvy that is impeding the American citizens from accessing adequate health. The American healthcare system involves socialized and privatized healthcare. The socialized healthcare system is inefficient due to lack of financial balance to support adequate care for every American.

How many Americans cannot afford treatment for fatal diseases because of money? How many Americans cannot afford even simple health check-ups? Millions of Americans do not have healthcare. America needs to adopt a free healthcare system to provide fair protection for all American citizens. America's founding documents promised equal opportunity, and that is not upheld when Americans do not have equal health opportunity.

The U.S. health care system unlike many other advanced industrialized countries do not have a uniform system. Until recently, there has been no universal health care coverage or legislation mandated healthcare coverage required for everyone (Dorning, 2016). This has lead to many different consumer’s perception of the U.S. health care system. Consumers like the facts that they get to choose the plans and coverage they want along with choosing the doctors and medical professionals they wish to see while getting high-qaulity clinical care (Jonas & Kovner, 2015). They can also get access to the latest medical technologies and pharmaceuticals. Jonas and Kovner (2015) states that some of the consumer’s dislike of the U.S. health care system is

This discussion paper will compare the American health care system to the German, Japanese and Canadian systems and describe the strengths and weakness of each of them.

Healthcare is a problem that a lot of grown people in most, if not all, countries must face at some point in their lives. Healthcare can be extremely important in some situations, like elderly family members or severe illnesses. In the U.S., healthcare is not free, and the debate on whether or not it should be free is definitely a heated one in recent times. If we look over at the U.K., they have free healthcare, and, while this may have more benefits than the U.S.'s system, there are always downsides.

This article is full of information about how our healthcare system works in American and how our population is controlled and how it works. I will also cover how insurance helps this population and healthcare. The things that interests me about my topic the most is that in the generation we live in today. It is full of technology and finding different ways and new sources to make the healthcare system better. This affects how healthcare system works around our elders and everyone. It also affects people’s family, because we have to see our family suffer from these awful diseases and they die. We have to control the population in order for our world to still function. Doing this means that our government may not tell us the whole truth about

O v e r v i e w o f t h e U . S . H e a l t h C a r e S y s t e m