Healthcare Costs: USA vs France

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Cost is the most challenging factor in health care. The reasonability and affordability of healthcare should be the main concern for the community. A more acceptable cost will guarantee improved access to healthcare for everyone. The United States American health expenditure totaled 17.7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or $ 8,507.6 per capita in 2011 (OECD, 2013). American health care cost depends on the market including several providers (profit, non-profit, and government owned facilities) and payers (private for profit, non-profit insurance companies, the government, self insured and self payers). Health expenditures can separate into different categories, such as, in-patient care, out-patient care, pharmaceuticals, public health and administration, etc. The hospital market in the United States is uncoordinated, duplicating specialized care without enough volume in most of them to make procedures affordable (Govindarajan & Ramamurti, 2013). American healthcare is expensive for the following reasons. First, administrative costs are high due to poor management between the providers and the newly implemented Electronic Health Record (EHR), which could decrease wasteful services. It can also help if patients want to go to another hospital where they could easily have another physician. The EHR will slash the redundancy of these investigations. If 80% of the U.S. population used the EHR by 2019, around $21billion could be saved. President Obama said that in order to save dollars and lives, all Americans must have EHRs by 2014 (Barton, 2010). The United States has the highest costs for healthcare. The United States provides more health care, more doctors’ appointments, more surgeries, more d... ... middle of paper ... ...a constant fee rate for any visit to a general practitioner, which cost is $ 23 per visit in 2012, while in the US, this cost $ 89 per visit (www.advisory.com). This indicates that how the French health care cost is a quarter of the American health care cost. Summary The US spends double the amount on health care as France, due to the several previously mentioned reasons. The major difference is that the US health system based on market, while France's health care system is prone to be a socialized approach. Both countries have a newly reformed system; the US is trying to control the cost without affecting the quality, while France is trying to provide more facilities with extra out of pocket. Also, the reform attempts to face accelerating upcoming high cost related to increased demand on health services. Works Cited Electronic Medical Records

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