The On The Health Care System

The U.S. health care system is way more complex than what meets the eye. A major difference between the health care system in the U.S. and other nations, is that the U.S. does not have universal health care. Lack of a universal health care opens up the doors for competition amongst insurance, physicians, technology, hospitals and outpatient services.

Universal Healthcare sounds appealing, but it actually lowers the quality and quantity of healthcare services that are rendered to patients, thus downgrading the healthcare system as a whole.  Not having to pay, with everyone having coverage leads to longer wait times for medical service and many people overusing health care services. Implementation of Universal Healthcare in the United States would lead to a detrimental crippling of the nation’s health system. For those countries that have implemented Universal Healthcare or a system similar to it, all or most aspects of the coverage such as cost and care is generally provided by and tightly controlled by the government, a public-sector committee, or employer-based programs, with most of the funding essentially coming from tax revenues or budget cuts in other areas of spending. This paper will conclude with comparing the US healthcare system to others and how the US has one of the most advanced systems in the world.

Money plays a huge role in access, therefore it is a vital issue to discuss. Within the current system, lack of money results in lack of health care, which leaves thousands of people without any health care coverage. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of people paying for health insurance increased 30%, however income only raised 3% (Health Care Problems). Adequate income is a necessity and unfortunately that is not present. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the average annual premium across the country is $16,000. Currently, the average annual income in the United States is $51,107. Mint Money Management suggests that about 4-6% of one’s total income should be spent on insurance, including life, disability, and health insurance. However, the averages in the United States show that the average person spends about 31% of their income on health insurance, which is not financially beneficial. When this rise in health insurance is not parallel to the inflation of income, innocent people are left without a method to achieve health care. There is a program for those who can’t afford health insurance out of pocket nor have access to it, and that is called Medicaid. Issues still exist with the program. There is only so much funding, which leaves many still uninsured. Additionally, people with Medicaid have difficulty

The United States health care system is lacking the needs to create a reliable system to achieve quality, access, cost, and educate for the consumers. Despite the efforts of the government to find a common ground to meet the standard for the societies, the system has yet to have a major improvement. These issues must be reexamined to fix the broken system. The United States health care expenditure is another issue that needs to be addressed to achieve the future goals of the healthcare system in the United States. Healthcare societies will need to interact differently by incorporating consumer’s empowerment, technology, and education to meet the future goals of the health care system. Also, the consumer must be highly educated on the purpose of preventive care to lower the risk of chronic diseases which account for a lot health care spending. The process of correcting the United States health care system will take time and effort from all individual to achieve greatness.

The idea of passing the health care reform was to expand health care coverage, however, in order to do so, many changes must be implemented in order to fulfill the ACA 's promises. The first of which is allowing all individuals to acquire health insurance no matter the age, pre-existing conditions, or other unfair practices. Statistics show that “half of Americas” have a preexisting medical condition in which with the passage of the ACA, it allows individuals to acquire health insurance without the worry of having to pay high insurance bills (Moisse, 2011). The reason why having preexisting health conditions is no longer a factor in acquiring health insurance is because with the passage of the ACA (as discussed earlier, it was made a mandate to acquire health insurance) it is expected that it will balance out economically with the people who require more medical help to their healthier counterparts that do not require as much medical attention (Goodnough, 2016).

We all know death is inevitable, as morbid as it sounds, but we also all would like to prolong death as long we can to live long, happy lives. Unfortunately, some people fail to fully connect how their daily lifestyle impacts the ability to live these ideal long and happy lives. As the CDC (2016) states, nearly 70% of the U.S. population is considered overweight or obese and almost 40 million people still smoke. These statistics indicate that there are numerous unhealthy behaviors that a bulk of our population chooses to participate in. This brings us to the question, what would it take to shift our country into not only helping them to stop, but also them wanting to stop partaking in these unhealthy behaviors and truly fulfill the desire to want to live longer? Since the majority of the population relies on the U.S. health system to help treat them once arguably preventable health issues arise, why not take the opportunity to use the same system to help combat these unhealthy behaviors from the start. The U.S. health system could implement more educational opportunities, specific prevention programs, help reduce health disparities, increase health literacy, and offer incentives for healthy behaviors.

What is the real and perceived performance of the U.S. health care system? Are the views different among patients, providers, payers, and policy makers? Why or why not?

Today’s health care system is very different from how it used to be. There have been many changes that have taken place which represent the major shifts involved in moving from a plan which was based mainly on what the patient wanted, to a managed care system. The American health care system has evolved immensely over the past years and it continues to evolve to this day. As health care costs continue to rise, as treatments become even more costly, and as the population continues to age, it is essential to understand how health care is different from in the past and how changes in the future will impact families across the nation. By addressing past modifications, awareness is brought upon individuals and families regarding the progression of the current health care system.

“Medicaid has evolved into the nation’s largest health insurance program (Knickman & Kovner, A., 2015).” This was not the government’s intention in the beginning, Medicaid was mainly for a safety net. During the 90’s and early 2000’s the rise of health care costs, and the loss of jobs led to a large population of uninsured people. Even if people could afford to purchase their insurance, some were unable, because of pre-existing conditions, and the insurer would not sell them a policy. Obama passed the ACA, in order to remedy this situation, there may be pros and cons to the health policy, but nobody will deny that the medical problems in the country were affecting the economy and people in a negative way (Knickman & Kovner, A.,

It’s time that people know the truth about the American health care system and the harsh realities that come from associating with a free market health care system. We should also know about the different health care system offered in other industrialized countries. The Documentary “Sicko” shows us the lives of many people American and Non-American and their experiences with healthcare / health services ranging from U.S, Canada, France, England and Cuba. In all these countries, the only one that requires its citizens to pay for health care is the U.S. Health care in the U.S is dominated by the free market and private enterprise / HMO organizations and their thirst for profits, because of this I feel like health care should be owned by the

The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world. It spends

Great job by Team 1. I think it was very helpful to have a learning agenda and providing guidance for the rest of the class about the questions posted. Your slides were a great visual aid as a way to summarize all of the material learned this week through the lectures and readings. I also think that the questions, especially # 3 and #4, allow students to really think, analyze and do more research about this week’s topics, allowing us to put into practice what we have learned this week. I also think that it might be interesting in future lectures, when we shift from the US health care system to other national health care systems, to compare the different disparities and how these are being addressed.

The United States health care system is problematic. On average the U.S. has 440,000 deaths a year from care in hospitals due to accidents and hospital acquired infections; harming patients and the pocket books of families and insurance companies with unnecessary cost and procedures (Allen). With the Affordable Care Act (ACA) the government is hoping to decrease these unnecessary cost; cutting down on medication administration, providing more preventive care, and merging many different healthcare members’ jobs into one position in order to cut cost on staff. There has been great strives with the new reform of health care, but there has also been downfalls and uncertainty. Preventive care has come to the forefront; this will help save patients and money for all those in the market for healthcare, so everyone. While preventive care is great, it is leaving many health care members are questioning what is next for them. The ACA is moving into the general public, but with immunizations already being taken over by drug stores, people are worried about the stability of job opportunities outside the hospital. As a nursing student myself I have concern of what the job market will be when I graduate; because when I started it was in high demand and now many student are struggling to find jobs. Therefore, I have concerns with the ACA and that some provisions will need to be reevaluated.

The healthcare system plays a key role in the economic stability of our country, as every year trillions are spent in attempt to combat disease and health issues that plaque humanity. As it makes up a significant amount of the expenditures in the economy, so the costs associated with health care of those in pain from illness and injury, including lost productivity, increased need of assistance in living and also the cost of death in some cases, is important to the economic stability and over all standard of living in our country. The key to economic prosperity is balancing the need for care with the costs of illness to keep as many people healthy and well without breaking the bank of collective society. The costs of healthcare have been increasingly problematic in recent years with so many issues surrounding the current system. With the “total health care spending in the United States expected to reach $4.8 trillion in 2021, up from $2.6 trillion in 2010 and $75 billion in 1970, meaning that health care spending will account for nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or one-fifth of the U.S. economy, by 2021” (Aetna). With this in mind it is apparent that as we look at the trillion-dollar industry of the medical community it seems that it needs to be a major focus of our nation as a whole and with the many issues come many creative solutions. First let us analyze the reasons behind the current cost and the major problems facing this industry and than discus what

The current state of United States’ health care system is one of the most polarizing subjects of debate among scholars and other health care professionals across the globe. This can be attributed to the fact that at one extreme end, there are some who argue that that Americans have the best system of health care in the world (MePhee, 2013). Perhaps the availability of the state-of-the-art facilities and free medical technology that have become highly symbolic of the various industries in the United States have motivated the idea of the country’s health care system being unparalleled to others. However, there is a common belief that the fight for universal health care can only be successful if its current state of health care is described as a failure in the modern era as emphasized by MePhee (2013).