American’s Health-Care Crisis

INTRODUCTION
The health care system in the United States encompasses so many individuals, businesses, and interest groups. Also, it can be difficult to pinpoint the most optimal approach to serve everyone’s unique needs and wants. This has led to a major health-care crisis in the society. As a matter of fact, the effect of the health-care crisis in the American society has been a longtime situation, and an effective policy response must focus on what is most enriching in the society: aiming to improve the overall quality of the system and positively impact the health status of all citizens, while subsequently minimizing costs.

What are the effects of American’s health-care crisis?
American’s health-care system is in turmoil. According to Bradley and Taylor (2013), “we spend nearly twice what other industrialized countries spend on health-care” (para.2). See figure 1;

Figure 1(Huffington post, 2013, chart 1).
Figure 1 shows various industrialized countries per capita spending on health-care, and the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). Particularly, it is clearly seen that the United States has the highest per capita spending on health-care compared to other countries.
For several decades, this high level of spending on health care in the United States has been the subject of discussion and scrutiny. In fact, the rapid increase in health care spending affects major economic indicators such as, per capita GDP, employment and inflation. Furthermore, the effects are likely to occur across all sectors of the economy, businesses and households; as all these inter-related sectors play an important role in the provision, financing and consumption of health care in the United States (Virts & Wilson, 1984, vo...

... middle of paper ...

...on of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books.
Bradley, E., Taylor, L. (2013, November 29). The Pain Is Not the Problem: How to Fix America’s Health-Care Crisis. Daily Beast
Virts, J.R., Wilson, G.W. (1984). Health Affairs, 3, no.1: 88-100
Inflation and health care prices

OECD health data. (2013). Why U.S. Health Care Is Obscenely Expensive, In 12 Charts. The Huffington Post

Baicker, K., Chadra, A. (2004, April 7). Medicare Spending, the Physician workforce and beneficiaries’ quality of care. Health Care Affairs w4: 184-97

Squires, D.A (2012, May). Explaining high health care spending in the United States: An international comparison of supply, utilization, and prices. The Commonwealth Fund.
Moffitt, Robert, and Barbara Wolfe. 1992 The effect of the Medicaid program on welfare participation and labor supply. Review of Economics and Statistics 74: 615–26.