Accessibility Issues In Health Care

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Currently in the United States, the health care system is experiencing a vital crisis. The U.S. is ranked the highest paying health care system per capita out of 10 countries including, Australia and the Netherlands. We are also ranked worst in patient quality and outcome (Bernstein). Americans without health care are more prone to life threatening health problems and the life expectancy of an uninsured individual is about 60 years. Shorter life expectancies are due to health conditions such as high blood pressure and unhealthy life styles that could have been controlled if they had health insurance. Many health care reforms have been put into place to improve the systems efficiency. However, the reforms have made a weak impact on changing …show more content…

health care system is the accessibility of our health care. The biggest problem with accessibility is finding a provider who takes a certain type of insurance. The main reason U.S. health care faces accessibility issues is because we do not have a universal health care like many other countries do. Individuals are having a difficult time finding physicians who are willing to accept new patients covered by Medicare of Medicaid due to their lower reimbursement policies (Geyman, 2012, p. 578). Many individuals are paying for certain types of insurance, only to find out that doctors will not accept their insurance provider. Another problem is Medicare is seen as one of the largest health care providers, with nearly 45.3 million individuals using Medicare (Darling, 2009, p, 92). Not only is it difficult to afford health care, but one of the largest health care providers is also an insurance agency that is not accepted by many physicians. Health care is also very limited to those who are not U.S. citizens. Eligibility for health insurance can be discriminatory and difficult for non U.S. citizens to obtain. Insurance companies such as Medicare require individuals to have worked for 10 years in order to be eligible for their health insurance. This can create a barrier for individuals who have not worked for 10 years or if they were stay-at-home parents; they then have to rely on their spouses in order to receive the coverage. If people are …show more content…

health care systems is the poor quality and outcomes of patient care. The Commonwealth Fund in New York states “although the U.S. spends more on health care than any other country and has the highest portion of specialist physicians, survey findings indicate that from the patients’ perspective, and based on outcome indicators, the performance of American health care is severely lacking” (Bernstein). Not only are Americans paying an excessive amount of money for health insurance, the patients are unsatisfied with the quality of care they receive. Higher spending is not buying greater user satisfaction, as chronically ill patients in the U.S. who are most frequently in need of care, are generally less satisfied with their care compared to their counterparts in other countries (Milstein & Darling, 2010, p. 31). Efficiency is also a factor of poor outcomes when physicians have difficulties receiving timely information, coordinating care, and dealing with administrative hassles (Bernstein). These difficulties can lead to poor outcomes because they are all problems that take time away from the patients. An example of poor outcomes was in the 17th century, doctors found by just washing their hands before assisting in child birth largely decreased the spread of puerperal fever, which was a disease that took the lives of 250,000-500,000 mothers (Winkfield). If doctors and physicians would slow down and take their time to make sure

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