Even after all the debate conserning ObamaCare, the United States still lacks a health care system that provides insurance for all citizens. With an economy that is weak, and a high rate of unemployment, this represents a serious problem. In other countries, where insurance is mandatory, medical bill are rarely paid by the average citizen. Healthcare in the United States is must be given to everyone, but it’s the matter of affording to pay the medical bills, and being accepted by an insurance company that is the main issue. In the video Sick Around the World, it introduces five countries and how their health care works, while the video Sick Around America emphasizes the problems with our health care system, and shows individual stories of those impacted. The video Sick Around the World (2008) interviewed five countries on their health care policies, how they worked, and if the general population of that country was in favor of it. In England, the best component of their health care system was that the people did not have an insurance premium, co-pay, and never have to pay a medical bill. In Japan, there are fixed prices set every two years for each procedure. In addition, an insurance company cannot turn down someone with a specific disease or disorder. In Germany, doctors do not have to pay to attend medical school. Taiwan’s best components are that each patient has a smart card with their medical history to make it easier when they go to the doctor’s office, and they do not allow the rich to opt out of insurance. In Switzerland, everyone must have insurance, and if people refuse they are automatically assigned to an insurance company. “47 million U.S. residents have no health insurance, and the numbers keep growing. America’s workers struggle to pay higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments. Working families are experiencing increases in the costs of health insurance, more out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits and skyrocketing prices for prescriptions, forcing many to delay getting needed medical care or words“(2012). The video Sick Around America introduced many issues with the United States health care system. The biggest problems in the United States is medical underwriting, if you lose your job that provides health insurance, you lose the health insurance. According to healthinsurance.org (1994), medical underwriting is “when you apply for individual health insurance, the health insurance company uses a process called underwriting to look at your age, sex, and health history to decide whether it will cover you and how much it will cost to provide you coverage.
On a global scale, the United States is a relatively wealthy country of advanced industrialization. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is among the costliest, spending close to 18% of gross domestic product (GDP) towards funding healthcare (2011). No universal healthcare coverage is currently available. United States healthcare is currently funded through private, federal, state, and local sources. Coverage is provided privately and through the government and military. Nearly 85% of the U.S. population is covered to some extent, leaving a population of close to 48 million without any type of health insurance. Cost is the primary reason for lack of insurance and individuals foregoing medical care and use of prescription medications.
Sicko, a film by Michael Moore was released in 2007. The film investigates health care system in the United States. One would definitely get amazed by the facts and figures explained in this documentary. The movie explains failing health care system in the United States. America has advance medical technology, big hospitals, and educated health care professionals, but these facilities are not universal. The film starts by talking about true American stories; what some people have experienced from current health care system, those who had and did not had health insurances. The story starts by Adam, one of 50 million people in America who does not have health insurance. Due to an accident Adam required a medical treatment, but for the reason of not having any insurance he puts stitches on his leg by himself. The second story was about Rick, who accidentally cut the top of his two fingers, middle and the ring while working on the table saw. As a result of not having health insurance, Rick could not put the top of his middle finger back because it was costing 60,000 dollars and he did not had the money. So, he decided to put his ring finger back because it cost 12,000 dollars which he could afford. The movie does not go into the detail of 50 million people who do not have health insurance, but it’s about 250 million Americans who do have health insurance.
Healthcare has now become one of the top social as well as economic problems facing America today. The rising cost of medical and health insurance impacts the livelihood of all Americans in one way or another. The inability to pay for medical care is no longer a problem just affecting the uninsured but now is becoming an increased problem for those who have insurance as well. Health care can now been seen as a current concern. One issue that we face today is the actual amount of healthcare that is affordable. Each year millions of people go without any source of reliable coverage.
The United States spends vast amounts on its healthcare, while falling short of achieving superiority over other developed nations. One cannot overlook that the deepening recession has left many without jobs and therefore lacking health insurance. According to Fairhall and Steadman, (2009), even though the recession is hard on all, it is worse on the uninsured due to health care and insurance cost rising faster than incomes. Nevertheless, even those with jobs are lacking in health insurance due to employers, who provide insurance, are increasingly dropping their sponsored insurance. Many find that purchasing a health policy or paying for medical care out-of-pocket is cost prohibitive. “Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed Americans has increased by 3.6 million,” (Fairhall & Steadman, 2009). In 2009 it was stated that approximately 46 million Americans were uninsured, however not all of that number is due to the inability to afford coverage. According to a 2009 story written by Christopher Weaver of Kaiser Health News, 43% of that number should be classified as “voluntarily” uninsured. This subset of uninsured Americans consist of nearly half being young and healthy; therefo...
Health insurance comes as second nature to many of us. We grab that blue and white card and put it in our wallet and forget about it until we are sick or injured. When this happens, there it is, cushioning our fall like the extra padding it provided to cushion our wallets. This is not the case with everyone, however. Many Americans have no cushion to fall back on, no blue and white card to show the emergency room when they have an unexpected health concern. No HMO with a convenient co-pay amount when their son or daughter develops an ear infection.
In recent years, the number of Americans who are uninsured has reached over 45 million citizens, with millions more who only have the very basic of insurance, effectively under insured. With the growing budget cuts to medicaid and the decreasing amount of employers cutting back on their health insurance options, more and more americans are put into positions with poor health care or no access to it at all. At the heart of the issue stems two roots, one concerning the morality of universal health care and the other concerning the economic effects. Many believe that health care reform at a national level is impossible or impractical, and so for too long now our citizens have stood by as our flawed health-care system has transformed into an unfixable mess. The good that universal healthcare would bring to our nation far outweighs the bad, however, so, sooner rather than later, it is important for us to strive towards a society where all people have access to healthcare.
What Seems To Be The Problem? A discussion of the current problems in the U.S. healthcare system.
Health insurance is currently an important issue in the United States. Everyday more and more Americans become uninsured due to job loss and an increase in premiums. These Americans add to the ever growing population of 45.7 million people who are currently uninsured (Bialik). Moreover only 27% of those uninsured are under the age of 65 (NCHC). This is staggering considering most of those who are uninsured have, or soon will, suffer from some sort of illness or injury. As a result they will not be able to afford proper treatment. Insurance premiums can range in cost from fifty dollars per month, to fifteen hundred dollars per month (Kreidler). An individual’s premium is determined by factors they choose as well as other factors looked at by their provider. The cost of health insurance in America varies depending on the controllable factors, like particular insurance policies, and uncontrollable factors, like age.
I chose the movie “Sicko,” and while watching this movie I saw the different countries and how they went about the healthcare system. Starting with the United States, in order to receive healthcare you’re supposed to have health insurance which some can afford and others can’t. In the beginning of the movie different people went about the different reasons why they were denied health insurance and the different effects that it had on their life. For example, a man whose 79 years by the name of Frank Cardeal is insured by Medicare but it doesn’t cover all of the medication that he and his wife need. He works as a custodian and a business which covers his medication. I feel as though he should be laid back somewhere, but instead he’s stuck working
While most countries around the world have some form of universal national health care system, the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, does not. There are much more benefits to the U.S. adopting a dorm of national health care system than to keep its current system, which has proved to be unnecessarily expensive, complicated, and overall inefficient.
Out of all the industrialized countries in the world, the United States is the only one that doesn’t have a universal health care plan (Yamin 1157). The current health care system in the United States relies on employer-sponsored insurance programs or purchase of individual insurance plans. Employer-sponsored coverage has dropped from roughly 80 percent in 1982 to a little over 60 percent in 2006 (Kinney 809). The government does provide...
There are huge impacts of the rising costs. Many people can not afford health insurance. Of the families that do have health coverage, 50 percent are concerned about having to pay more for that coverage in the future, while 42 percent fear they will not be able to afford coverage at all. (National Coalition on Healthcare, 2005, Facts on heal...
More than one-third of Americans who are between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four are uninsured. This is because most insurance is provided through a person’s job, and entry-level jobs which isn 't available for all young students. In addition, healthcare costs are currently rising faster than inflation, which means that salary increases cannot compensate for the higher prices of health care. Government regulation and a universal system could help keep costs affordable. A universal system would guarantee that everyone could receive health care regardless of preexisting conditions. Consequently, more people would be able to seek preventative services, like checkups, to maintain good health and detect problems early. Too frequently, people avoid taking preventative health measures until something is too late because of how expensive it is. While there 's a debate over how the U.S. should pay for a universal healthcare system, a good idea is to study the ways several other countries have successfully implemented such a system. Europe has a system in which all residents pay into a common fund that creates a pool of money and provides benefits to all. We must figure out a way to effectively adopt a universal healthcare system that provides care to all
An issue that is widely discussed and debated concerning the United States’ economy is our health care system. The health care system in the United States is not public, meaning that the states does not offer free or affordable health care service. In Canada, France and Great Britain, for example, the government funds health care through taxes. The United States, on the other hand, opted for another direction and passed the burden of health care spending on individual consumers as well as employers and insurers. In July 2006, the issue was transparency: should the American people know the price of the health care service they use and the results doctors and hospitals achieve? The Wall Street Journal article revealed that “U.S. hospitals, most of them nonprofit, charged un-insured patients prices that vastly exceeded those they charged their insured patients. Driving their un-insured patients into bankruptcy." (p. B1) The most expensive health care system in the world is that of America. I will talk about the health insurance in U.S., the health care in other countries, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and my solution to this problem.
In many other countries the health care is government controlled and all citizens are provided government assisted health care. Most systems over in Europe are indeed government controlled and are taxed my wages. The United States government does not pay for most of its citizens healthcare in contrast. If you are fournate enough to afford insurance it's usually through your employer. In comparssion almost all government operated insurances provide better care for babies and pregant mothers than the United States system of health care. The United States system are more flexible than government aided systems though.