World Health Organization Of The United States

In 2010, the United States created The Affordable Care Act (ACA). The objective was to share the responsibility of costs between the government, individuals, and employers to provide affordable access to quality health insurance. “However, health coverage remains fragmented, with numerous private and public sources, as well as wide gaps in insured rates across the U.S. population.” (“United States: International Health Care System Profiles,” n.d.). Each individual state within the US, generally has control over private insurance.

Many would agree that a worthy, controlled health system, above all, should essentially contribute to good health. The responsibility of a health care system is that the organization of people, institutions, and resources deliver the health care services required and meet the health needs of focus populations. Another duty that the health care systems stimulate is the reduction of inequality to race, gender, social status and religion. Each health care system is different when looking at specific countries across the world, however some countries are more similar than others, such as France and Canada’s health care system. These two countries have numerous similarities when examining their health care systems, conversely that does not denote that both France and Canada are just as equivalent as the other. When observing countless aspects, such as longevity and infant mortality, as well as a lot of the inputs such as doctors or beds per capita, and of course the total expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP over the year, it is seen that France has a better and more enhanced health care system than Canada.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has created an agenda for 2030. Within this agenda there are seventeen sustainable developmental goals (SDG) that aim to transform our world. These goals are to be met through numerous different means, government policies, public change, non-government organizations (NGO) and a variety of other ways. NGO’s are a large way to help meet these goals and impact the world for the better. LRBT, an NGO that focuses on eye care for those who live in Pakistan, focuses on meeting the goal ensuring healthy lives and wellbeing for all at all ages (United nations SDG, reference). Ensuring eye care for the residents of Pakistan not only provides them with care they should be subject too always, but

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 United States has a very unique healthcare system. Does this mean that we are simply leagues ahead of the rest of the world in healthcare? Unfortunately, not at all. The ideal of American exceptionalism is apt to describe our healthcare system. That is, our current system is exceptionally bad. Per capita, the United States spends “twice the average of other developed countries” on healthcare ("United States Per Capita Healthcare Spending Is More Than Twice The Average Of Other Developed Countries"). Yet, in the World Health Organization’s ranking of healthcare systems by nation, the U.S. comes in at a dismal 37th place, despite spending the most per person of any country on Earth on healthcare ("World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems").

According to Schroeder “ the United States spends more on health care than any other nation in the world, but ranks poorly on every measure of health status” ( Schroeder,1). Schroeder discussed the two main reasons why the United States ranks so poorly on every measure of the health system. One of the reasons for the low ranking in the American health system is “the pathways to better health do not generally depend on better health care” (Schroeder, 1); the fact that we have access to advance tools and technologies in our health care system does not necessary mean that we are healthier than other countries. Determinants such as behaviors patterns, environmental exposures and social circumstances also greatly influence our health.

Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall among 11 industrialized countries on measures of health system quality, efficiency, access to care, equity, and healthy lives, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. The other countries included in the study were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands,

Socialized medical systems are designed to disregard the insurance industry and disregard income while providing health care for all. Healthcare in the United States is constantly changing and advancing, which requires the cost of health insurance to rise. The idea of socialized medicine is prominent, until the aspects of socialized medicine are brought to attention. Every aspect of a socialized health care industry is controlled and powered by the government; most doctors, nurses, medics and administrators are government employees, and the government decides when, where, and how services are provided. Even though socialized healthcare systems would save money, it is a prominent idea but not worth the problems because total government control over the way healthcare is distributed would result in complications of the citizens.

As some people were skeptical about the basis for the ranking, several studies were conducted, this time including “amenable mortality” in the criteria. France was first in the ranking. One good thing about France’s health care system is that everyone has health care. The country is also reported to rely on private and government insurance. Unlike the United States, France lets its citizens to have freedom in choosing hospitals, doctors, and care. Additionally, the health care system does not put much constrain on doctors with regards to making medical decisions. The same situation is evident on German health care system, where everyone has fully portable health insurance which comes with package of benefits. Like France, Germany lets its patients have freedom in choosing doctor and hospital during illness. A survey showed that patients and physicians in Germany are both satisfied with their health care system (Reinhardt, 1994, p.22).

In my comparison, I will use France, Japan, Sweden and Canada, which rank 1st, 10th, 23rd and 30th, respectively. France tops the WHOs list for health rankings and has universal healthcare largely financed by the Government and approximately 77% health expenditures are government funded. The most notable difference in the French system in contrast to the United States is cost regulation. In France healthcare costs are regulated by a governmental

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.

Many view France’s healthcare system as ideal. This opinion was validated when the World Health Organization ranked it number one in overall healthcare (WHO 2000). Their structure is a multi-payer system which has both public and private sections. It is more

The health care system I decide to talk about is Germany. Germany was one of the first countries to have university program of health insurance since 1880s. The German health care system is called dual system containing both a compulsory insurance and a private insurance. People who make less than $4,350 euro per month have to be covered by statutory health insurance, and the people who make more than that can have voluntary private health insurance scheme. Unlike the USA, the cost of a hospital stay is only 10 euros per day for the members of the state plan. Like most health care system there are both pros and cons within the health care system. One of the pros for the system is that the patience get to choice their doctors and hospitals,

Each of these country profiles was written based on indicators from the International Programs of the US Census Bureau and the reports of the Global Health Observatory arm of the World Health Organization. This data was compiled into Table 1 which can be found in Appendix 1. A list of the reports and websites appears in the Works Cited Section of the report.

The financing of the French public health system can be divided into three points of origin. Forty-eight percent originates from taxes imposed on employers and owners of firms, 30 percent from fees paid by covered citizens and 22 percent from the government's overall tax revenues.