There has been plans geared towards improvement of healthcare in the U.S to enable meet its population needs by improving the health status of Americans. Top on the list of its agenda is to provide appropriate healthcare to all people within the U.S. borders which is a goal that is achievable according to PR Newswire (2007).
Healthcare Provision and Resources
In the United States almost all levels of healthcare are delivered by the private sector providers. Many hospitals and health facilities are owned and run by profit making companies. Doctors and other health workers are either independent practitioners or happen to work for private-sector healthcare institutions. Access to healthcare is acquired through employment-based private health insurance. The government is the one that finances the non-working poor and the retired citizens through the two large government social insurance programs which are Medicaid for the poor which is funded by both the state and the federal general revenue and Medicare for the retired people which is funded by a federal payroll tax and general revenue.
The three arms, that is, Medicaid, Medicare and the Private Health Insurance therefore covers about 84% of the whole population while the remaining which is composed of working poor and their families depend on their own financial resources or charity in order to take care of their medical bills which in most cases is not adequate. Mostly their medical care is often below the required standard and their health is always compromised due to lack of adequate care (Institute of Medicine, 2002). The aging population has also increased which has led increase in the incidences of chronic diseases like diabetes, and heart diseases...
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...al support or manpower. Individuals from the community may decide to offer voluntary services to their fellow community members who are not self-sufficient or who do not have adequate support from caregivers or family. Trained medical personnel who hail from the same community may also come in and give their services for free or they may train a few volunteers who will then assist the people in the community to access the services with the same care but at a reduced cost. Generally it possible to reduce the gap through shared responsibility between the community and the resource providers and the state.
Reference List
Institute of Medicine, (2002). Care Without Coverage; Too Little, Too Late.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
PR Newswire, (2007). PR Newswire Association LLC. Retrieved
from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/448726907?accountid=45049
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.
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. In comparison, Germany spent slightly more than 11% of GDP (2011) towards healthcare funding.
For decades, one of the many externalities that the government is trying to solve is the rising costs of healthcare. "Rising healthcare costs have hurt American competitiveness, forced too many families into bankruptcy to get their families the care they need, and driven up our nation's long-term deficit" ("Deficit-Reducing Healthcare Reform," 2014). The United States national government plays a major role in organizing, overseeing, financing, and more so than ever delivering health care (Jaffe, 2009). Though the government does not provide healthcare directly, it serves as a financing agent for publicly funded healthcare programs through the taxation of citizens. The total share of the national publicly funded health spending by various governments amounts to 4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, GDP (Jaffe, 2009). By 2019, government spending on Medicare and Medicaid is expected to rise to 6 percent and 12 percent by 2050 (Jaffe, 2009). The percentages, documented from the Health Policy Brief (2009) by Jaffe, are from Medicare and Medicaid alone. The rapid rates are not due to increase of enrollment but growth in per capita costs for providing healthcare, especially via Medicare.
Access to healthcare provides financial stability by assuring people that they will not be financially destroyed by injury or illness. Additionally, when people can afford regular medical care they tend to avoid chronic problems and financial stress. In a study provided by the American Medical Students Association, researchers reviewed the costs and benefits of universal health care. They came to the conclusion, after reviewing other articles and statistics from multiple sources, that, “The annual cost of diminished health and shorter life spans of Americans without insurance is $65-$130 billion.” (Chua 5) This comes from people not having adequate health care and then losing their jobs because they...
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
spends about 15% of its gross domestic product on healthcare, thereby making it the largest sector of the economy” (Goldman, D., & McGlynn, E., 2005). “Americans are not healthier than some of the other developed nations, regardless of these extensive costs” (WHO, 2010). “Almost 40 million Americans are uninsured and about 18% of Americans under the age of 65 receive half of the recommended healthcare services” (Goldman, D., & McGlynn, E., 2005). “Though, quality of care was noted not to vary much in cities with respect to lack of insurance, poverty, penetration of managed care and availability of physicians and hospital beds” (Goldman, D., & McGlynn, E., 2005).
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.
According to Roy, 2013 the issues of providing the affordable care act will unite both the supporters and offenders of the public policy, but in this current situation where the input costs are rising, it will become impossible for government in managing the public policy related to affordable health care. In order to provide affordable health care, majority of the US government has tried out different policies time to time, but unable to get success in realizing the actual policy goals. By providing the affordable health care to majority of the people who requires more amount as controlling the input cost is not possible (AAMC, 2013). Lack of doctors is one of the primary issue in providing high quality health care to the citizens especially those who are financially poor. The Supreme Court of the country passed an Act related to Health insurance as all should have Health Insurance to all the country people by the year 2014, but the at the same time government is concerned about constitutionality of these act (NYTimes, 2013).
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.
Nearly every American can agree that our current health care system needs reforms. Primarily do to the fact that 45.7 million Americans are without health insurance. That's approximately 16 percent of Americans who sometimes have to do without healthcare, or face crucial financial responsibility. The main issues are admission to healthcare, and the affordability of health care. Before 1920, doctors didn't know enough about diseases to really provide useful care to sick people. Therefore the...
Resources have always been inadequate for food, economics and healthcare and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. Healthcare resources can be in the forms of medicine, machinery, expensive treatment and organ transplantation. For decades, allocation of healthcare resources in an equitable manner has always been the subject of debate, concern and analysis, yet the issue has persistently resisted resolution. Scarcity of resources for healthcare and issue of allocation is permanent and inescapable (Harris, “Deciding between Patients”). Scarcity can be defined in general, in emergency and in crises as well as shortage of certain kind of treatment, medicine or organs. As a result of scarcity of resources, and some people may be left untreated or die when certain patients are prioritized and intention of is that everyone will ultimately be treated (Harris, 2009: 335). Allocation of limited resources is an ethical issue since it is vital to address the question of justice and making fair decisions. Ethical judgments and concerns are part of daily choice in allocation of health resources and also to ensure these resources are allocated in a fair and just way. This paper will explore how QALYs, ageism and responsibility in particular influence the allocation of healthcare resources in general through the lens of justice, equity, social worth, fairness, and deservingness.
Healthcare is one of the major issues that America faces today. The health insurance companies are destroying America’s health care system by raising their premiums and deductibles. One great concern, access to health care is definitely on the decline. As of 2007, more than 75 million adults-42 percent of all adults ages 19 to 64- were either uninsured or underinsured (Commonwealth Fund Commission 9). The health care system in America needs a complete overhaul, reform.
Reforming health care system has been a hot topic for many years. A society's commitment to health care reflects some of it's most basic values about what it is to be a member of the human community (Cockerham, 2012). Legislators have been proposing diferrent policies in an effort to solve this dilemma without significant progress. All proposals to expand insurance coverage have had certain flaws and were sometimes far from being ideal or even realistic.
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Knouse, S. B. (2005). The Future of Human Resource Management: 64 Leaders Explore the Critical HR Issues of Today and Tomorrow. 58(4), 1089-1092.