Our Nation's Healthcare System

1153 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Health care turmoil in the united states

If there’s one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree on, it’s that our health care system is in shambles. It’s the laughingstock of the civilized world, to be perfectly honest. The World Health Organization, part of the United Nations, ranks the United States 37th overall, just ahead of Slovenia and Cuba, and right behind Dominica and Costa Rica. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; the World Health Organization ranks the mighty United States just above communist Cuba. In political science, there is a term called the iron triangle. The best example is the current defense setup in the United States. The three players are the defense contractors, the Department of Defense, and US Senators on defense spending committees. The DoD goes to the contractors as a whole saying they need a new model airplane. This spending has to be approved by a Senate committee. So, these contractors, in order to get the absurdly big contracts, work with senators in backdoor deals to create jobs in their states in exchange for passing the spending. The biggest loser: taxpayers. The health care industry is eerily similar. The three major players are pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies. The pharmaceutical companies charge insanely high prices on their drugs, so that they can make more money. This price, however, is largely covered by your insurance. Hospitals, meanwhile, broker deals with these same companies for appropriate rates. The insurance companies then raise their rates in accordance, but add a bit more to the top. The biggest loser: anyone concerned about their health. Do you want your health in the middle of that triangle? Unfortunately for us, the health care providers are in the pockets of the people with the pow... ... middle of paper ... ...it will cause massive spending are also not aware of the facts. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a robust plan including the public option will actually reduce the deficit. I’m not alone. In fact, Reuters released a poll in December with a startling fact: 60% of Americans want a public option. Nearly every poll released by a non partisan agency showed that the majority of Americans do want a public option. The problem: most Democrats on the Hill don’t believe the numbers. Why? Because their campaigns are funded by these health care companies to the tune of $550 million per year. Personally, I think that a single-payer system would be the best health care system this country can have. For now, however, a public option will suffice. It’s not perfect. But it’s far better than the current proposal, and centuries better than what we have now.

Show More
Related

  • Rethinking the U.S. Health Care System: A Call for Efficiency

    1854 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Broken Health Care System in America

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sicko, a film by Michael Moore was released in 2007. The film investigates health care system in the United States. One would definitely get amazed by the facts and figures explained in this documentary. The movie explains failing health care system in the United States. America has advance medical technology, big hospitals, and educated health care professionals, but these facilities are not universal. The film starts by talking about true American stories; what some people have experienced from current health care system, those who had and did not had health insurances. The story starts by Adam, one of 50 million people in America who does not have health insurance. Due to an accident Adam required a medical treatment, but for the reason of not having any insurance he puts stitches on his leg by himself. The second story was about Rick, who accidentally cut the top of his two fingers, middle and the ring while working on the table saw. As a result of not having health insurance, Rick could not put the top of his middle finger back because it was costing 60,000 dollars and he did not had the money. So, he decided to put his ring finger back because it cost 12,000 dollars which he could afford. The movie does not go into the detail of 50 million people who do not have health insurance, but it’s about 250 million Americans who do have health insurance.

    Read More

  • Healthcare Reform in the United States

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Fixing the Health Care System in America

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    For the last five years of my life I have worked in the healthcare industry. One of the biggest issues plaguing our nation today has been the ever rising cost of health care. If we don't get costs under control, we risk losing the entire system, as well as potentially crippling our economy. For the sake of our future, we must find a way to lower the cost of health care in this nation.

    Read More

  • A Right to a Healthy Life in Animal Farm by George Orwell

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    The facts bear out the conclusion that the way healthcare in this country is distributed is flawed. It causes us to lose money, productivity, and unjustly leaves too many people struggling for what Thomas Jefferson realized was fundamental. Among industrialized countries, America holds the unique position of not having any form of universal health care. This should lead Americans to ask why the health of its citizens is “less equal” than the health of a European.

    Read More

  • Essay On Fixing The Health Care System

    1475 Words  | 3 Pages

    There is an ongoing debate on the topic of how to fix the health care system in America. Some believe that there should be a Single Payer system that ensures all health care costs are covered by the government, and the people that want a Public Option system believe that there should be no government interference with paying for individual’s health care costs. In 1993, President Bill Clinton introduced the Health Security Act. Its goal was to provide universal health care for America. There was a lot of controversy throughout the nation whether this Act was going in the right direction, and in 1994, the Act died. Since then there have been multiple other attempts to fix the health care situation, but those attempts have not succeeded. The Affordable Care Act was passed in the senate on December 24, 2009, and passed in the house on March 21, 2010. President Obama signed it into law on March 23 (Obamacare Facts). This indeed was a step forward to end the debate about health care, and began to establish the middle ground for people in America. In order for America to stay on track to rebuild the health care system, we need to keep going in the same direction and expand our horizons by keeping and adding on to the Affordable Care Act so every citizen is content.

    Read More

  • Should America make Healthcare More Affordable?

    1251 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...s quite a smart idea for us to having something as a backup plan because who knows what could potentially happen if we don’t have it where can lead to a serious turmoil. But let’s be real clear on this every American needs Health Insurance Despite the circumstances of what it can have on everyone we should have it reguardless.If the Companies are willing to provide a less expensive one then what’s the reason to overcharge us for it.in all honestly The Healthcare companies want individuals to choose what they feel is best for them and what it can offer for support in giving them the right benefits to obtain for their life. Why should American settle for less when they can settle better to have the best.as individuals we need to understand that its healthcare Companies is not based on the name it’s all about what you’re able to afford and how much can it cover in orde

    Read More

  • HMO Regulation

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, there still needs to be a lot of work done to health care in the United States. Other nations provide universal health care to their citizens, but this would cause dilemmas in balancing two often conflicting policy goals: providing the public with equitable access to needed pharmaceuticals while controlling the costs. Universal health care probably would not work in the U.S. because our nation is so diverse and our economy is so complex. The system we have now obviously has its problems, and there is a lot of rom for improvement. HMO’s will still create problems for people and their medical bills, but they definitely should be monitored to see that their patients are receiving just treatment.

    Read More

  • Problems With the U.S. Healthcare System

    1646 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Strengths and Weaknesses of the US Health System

    2193 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Health Care

    1433 Words  | 3 Pages

    The cost of running the health care is might be very expensive. Never the less, guaranteeing citizens of basic and improved health care is more than unbearable to many countries, not to mention the expensive medical technologies that some countries cannot afford. I remember the time when i’m sick in Thailand, the cost was about 1500, my dad pull out his 1000 baht (Thai money) handing to cashier at the hospital back in Thailand saying this is all he have. The cashier looked at him sadly, she then only took 500 instead of 1000. She say come back and pay whenever you got the money but guess what? We moved here to United State before paying off our debt but my dad go back and pay twice he own when he visited Thailand last year. I believe that the government should provide everyone with health care. Though I think President Obama is making a solid effort given the nature of the American people, I do not think his healthcare plan goes far enough. He has the right idea in mandating that all people have health insurance, however, I think removing the public option was a bad idea. The public option should have been kept so that people can afford to buy health insurance. But again, it must be noted that this is not a perfect solution. I think the only real solution that is likely to make a big difference to those who need it would be a universal health care plan provided by the government. I had always had trouble with this idea because though I believed that everyone should have health care, I didn’t know if I could deem it a right. I had always felt that access to health care was a very important thing, especially because I come from a place where proper health care is not only difficult to find, but also impossible to pay for if found. However, health care had seemed less of a basic need than happiness or

    Read More

  • Single Payer System Research Paper

    259 Words  | 1 Pages

    While in the short term supporting the free market policy could cost some individuals more money than with single-payer, however, over a long period of time the vast majority of individuals will end up paying less money for health care than they would have for single-payer once you include all of the tax hikes that will come with single-payer. Individuals who do not have significant health problems will be financially solid with the free market system, yet in a single-payer system they would be financially struggling because their tax rate would go up massively and they would have to pay for the health care of others when they are not of fault. While even those with a one time large medical expense, over time it will be financially beneficial

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On The Affordable Care Act

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Less than a quarter of uninsured Americans believe the Affordable Care Act is a good idea. According to experts, more than 87 million Americans could lose their current health care plan under the Affordable Care Act. This seems to provide enough evidence that the Affordable Care Act is doing the exact opposite of what Democrats promised it would do. On the other hand, this law includes the largest health care tax cut in history for middle class families, helping to make insurance much more affordable for millions of families. The Affordable Care Act has been widely discussed and debated, but remains widely misunderstood.

    Read More

  • Philosophy

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ultimately, it should be up to each individual whether or not they wish to have health insurance or not. People that are willing and able to provide health care for themselves and their family should not be punished by having to pay additional taxes to provide health care for other people. It may sound harsh, but people must fend for themselves, that’s how the world works. As America being a free, democratic nation it would be nonsense to provide all citizens with health insurance, as this would be an infringement to the state of nature. I believe that the way that health care is in the United States is working out just fine, and does not need any changes made. Healthcare should not be automatically provided for all US citizens.

    Read More

  • Healthcare in the United States

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the United Nations listing health care as natural born right and the escalating cost of health care America has reached a debatable crisis. Even if you do have insurance it's a finical strain on most families.

    Read More

More about Our Nation's Healthcare System

Open Document