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
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.
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.
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...
Healthcare professionals want only to provide the best care and comfort for their patients. In today’s world, advances in healthcare and medicine have made their task of doing so much easier, allowing previously lethal diseases to be diagnosed and treated with proficiency and speed. A majority of people in the United States have health insurance and enjoy the luxury of convenient, easy to access health care services, with annual checkups, preventative care, and their own personal doctor ready to diagnose and provide treatment for even the most trivial of symptoms. Many of these people could not imagine living a day without the assurance that, when needed, medical care would not be available to themselves and their loved ones. However, millions of American citizens currently live under these unimaginable conditions, going day to day without the security of frequent checkups, prescription medicine, or preventative medicines that could prevent future complications in their health. Now with the rising unemployment rates due to the current global recession, even more Americans are becoming uninsured, and the flaws in the United States’ current healthcare system are being exposed. In order to amend these flaws, some are looking to make small changes to fix the current healthcare system, while others look to make sweeping changes and remodel the system completely, favoring a more socialized, universal type of healthcare system. Although it is certain that change is needed, universal healthcare is not the miracle cure that will solve the systems current ailments. Universal healthcare should not be allowed to take form in America as it is a menace to the capitalist principle of a free market, threatens to put a stranglehold on for-...
Health insurance, too many American citizens, is not an option. However, some citizens find it unnecessary. Working in the health care field, I witness the effects of uninsured patients on medical offices. Too often, I see a “self-pay” patient receive care from their doctor and then fail to pay for it. Altogether, their refusal to pay leaves the office at a loss of money and calls for patients to pay extra in covering for the cost of the care the uninsured patient received. One office visit does not seem like too big of an expense, but multiple patients failing to pay for the care they receive adds up. Imagine the hospital bills that patients fail to pay; health services in a hospital are double, sometimes triple, in price at a hospital. It is unfair that paying patients are responsible for covering these unpaid services. Luckily, the Affordable Care Act was passed on March 23, 2010, otherwise known as Obamacare. Obamacare is necessary in America because it calls for all citizens to be health insured, no worrying about pre-existing conditions, and free benefits for men and women’s health.
Until Obama-care, The United States was one of the only developed nations that did not provide some sort of health care for its citizens. To most other nations that do provide healthcare, it is because it is considered a human right that all people should be entitled to. That hasn’t been the case in America, however, where only those who could afford it could have healthcare plans. Those who stand to gain the most from universal healthcare are the already mentioned 45 million americans who currently don’t have any form of healthcare. For many of these individuals, there are many obstacles that prevent them from gaining healthcare. 80% of the 45 million are working class citizens, but either their employer doesn’t offer insurance, or they do but the individual can n...
In order to make ones’ health care coverage more affordable, the nation needs to address the continually increasing medical care costs. Approximately more than one-sixth of the United States economy is devoted to health care spending, such as: soaring prices for medical services, costly prescription drugs, newly advanced medical technology, and even unhealthy lifestyles. Our system is spending approximately $2.7 trillion annually on health care. According to experts, it is estimated that approximately 20%-30% of that spending (approx. $800 billion a year) appears to go towards wasteful, redundant, or even inefficient care.
Despite the established health care facilities in the United States, most citizens do not have access to proper medical care. We must appreciate from the very onset that a healthy and strong nation must have a proper health care system. Such a health system should be available and affordable to all. The cost of health services is high. In fact, the ...
The U.S. expends far more on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet we get fewer benefits, less than ideal health outcomes, and a lot of dissatisfaction manifested by unequal access, the significant numbers of uninsured and underinsured Americans, uneven quality, and unconstrained wastes. The financing of healthcare is also complicated, as there is no single payer system and payment schemes vary across payors and providers.
The US health system has both considerable strengths and notable weaknesses. With a large and well-trained health workforce, access to a wide range of high-quality medical specialists as well as secondary and tertiary institutions, patient outcomes are among the best in the world. But the US also suffers from incomplete coverage of its population, and health expenditure levels per person far exceed all other countries. Poor measures on many objective and subjective indicators of quality and outcomes plague the US health care system. In addition, an unequal distribution of resources across the country and among different population groups results in poor access to care for many citizens. Efforts to provide comprehensive, national health insurance in the United States go back to the Great Depression, and nearly every president since Harry S. Truman has proposed some form of national health insurance.
Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.
Reforming the health care delivery system to progress the quality and value of care is indispensable to addressing the ever-increasing costs, poor quality, and increasing numbers of Americans without health insurance coverage. What is more, reforms should improve access to the right care at the right time in the right setting. They should keep people healthy and prevent common, preventable impediments of illnesses to the greatest extent possible. Thoughtfully assembled reforms would support greater access to health-improving care, in contrast to the current system, which encourages more tests, procedures, and treatments that are either
In today’s healthcare system, there are many characteristics and forces that make up the complex structure. Health care delivery is a complex system that involves many people that navigate it with hopes of a better outcome to the residents of the United States. Many factors affect the system starting from global influences, social values and culture. Further factors include economic conditions, physical environment, technology development, economic conditions, political climate and population characteristics. Furthermore the main characteristics of the Unites States healthcare system includes: no agency governs the whole system, access to healthcare is restricted based on the coverage and third party agencies exist. Unfortunately many people are in power of the healthcare system involving multiple payers. Physicians are pressured to order unnecessary tests to avoid potential legal risks. Quality of care is a major component; therefore it creates a demand for new technology. A more close investigation will review two main characteristics and two external forces that currently affect the healthcare delivery system. Furthermore, what will be the impact of one of the characteristics and one of the external forces in review with the new affordable care act 2010? The review will demonstrate the implications to the healthcare delivery system and the impact on the affordable care act 2010.
The role that the government plays to ensure that these challenges are mitigated and that health care is available to all American citizens is also discussed. Among these problems, poor quality of care is perhaps the most visible and troubling, resulting in nearly 100,000 preventable deaths each year (Institute of Medicine, 1999) and reduced quality of life for millions of Americans due to non-fatal yet serious adverse events such as wrong-limb amputation, hospital-acquired infection, and medication errors (Institute of Medicine, 2006; Leape, 1997). Health care must be fully accountable for quality, and the patient experience is simply the patient's perception of quality. Society should question and debate how healthcare organizations should show improvement for consumers. This can help organizations create reliable health coverage costs and evaluate medical performance for families and individuals in the future.
Health insurance facilitates entry into the health care system. Uninsured people are less likely to receive medical care and more likely to have poor health. Many Americans are foregoing medical care because they cannot afford it, or are struggling to pay their medical bills. “Adults in the US are more likely to go without health care due to cost” (Schoen, Osborn, Squires, Doty, & Pierson, 2010) Many of the currently uninsured or underinsured are forced accept inferior plans with large out-of-pocket costs, or are not be able to afford coverage offered by private health insurers. This lack of adequate coverage makes it difficult for people to get the health care they need and can have a particularly serious impact on a person's health and stability.