Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Us Healthcare System

“There are three basic goals for a National Health Care System; 1) keeping people healthy, 2) treating the sick and 30 protecting families against financial ruin from medical bills”, (Physicians for a National Health Program, 2016). No truer statement could there possibly be written or proclaimed as there is a crisis in healthcare costs across the United States. United States, one of the most developed western country, yet we suffer from – higher infant mortality rates, have shorter life spans and are affected by more chronic disease and or illness – than our contemporaries all while spending the most for insurance per capita and less annual doctor visits with less physicians, (OECD Health Data 2015). There is a question to be answered, “why”, why are we trailing our contemporaries and more important than that is, is our National Health Care system really working for us? The year 2010 was the beginning of change in the United States where we transitioned from primarily private insurance and welfare to a universal healthcare model, under President Obama with the signing into Law of the Affordable Health Care Act March of 2010. The purpose of the Affordable health care act is to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable healthcare, however in 2016 we are still questioning we’ve been successful based on funding, government sponsored healthcare programs, effects on the current HCO, elderly, military and accessibility.

As Americans we should all be afforded access to healthcare. Access to healthcare is an individual right according to the human rights amendment. The human right to health guarantees a system of health protection for all. The human right to health means that everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes access to all medical services, sanitation, adequate food, decent housing, healthy working conditions and a clean environment (What is the Human Right to Health and Health Care, 2015). However there are strengths and weaknesses to every healthcare system and the U.S. Healthcare system is not exempt. I plan to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the U. S. Healthcare system (What is the Human Right to Health and Health Care, 2015).

The U.S. health care system faces challenges that indicate that the people urgently need to be reform. Attention has rightly focused on the approximately 46 million Americans who are uninsured, and on the many insured Americans who face rapid increases in premiums and out-of-pocket costs. As Congress and the Obama administration consider ways to invest new funds to reduce the number of Americans without insurance coverage, we must simultaneously address shortfalls in the quality and efficiency of care that lead to higher costs and to poor health outcomes. To do otherwise casts doubt on the feasibility and sustainability of coverage expansions and also ensures that our current health care system will continue to have large gaps even for those with access to insurance coverage.

Insurance however covers basic services making the US health system an imperfect market since patients are not directly generating the cost of services. The next characteristic is the government acts as a subsidiary to the private sector. The US system is largely in private hands; whatever is left is filled by the government which includes support for research and training. Another characteristic is the fusion of market justice and social justice. Market justice focuses on the fair distribution of health care on the market in a free economy. It is based on the patient’s compliance and capability of paying for their medical care. Social justice focuses on the community over the individual. This believes that the patient is unable to afford medical care. The fusion of both theories can work well together in that some people can receive insurance through employers and those that can’t, will receive insurance through the government. However, they can also create problems in that some employers cannot afford the cost of private insurance providers and the employees do not qualify for government health insurance. This leaves these people and their families uninsured. The next characteristic is multiple players and balance of powers. There are many different groups that play a role in the US health system, and each with their own interest. This

On March 23, 2010, the President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) which represents the most significant regulatory that impacts the U.S. healthcare systems. With PPACA, 32 millions of Americans are expected the coverage and expanded access to health care and medical care. Due to the baby boomers and the downfall of the economics, there will be millions of people are seeking for low rates medical care which will create great impact on U.S. healthcare. According to Commonwealth Fund analysis, the U.S. healthcare ranks last on every cost-related. Therefore, healthcare becomes the top social and economic problem that American is dealing with. Like all other well-developed countries, there are both private and public insurers in the U.S. health care system. ‘What is unique about the U.S. healthcare system in the world is the dominance of the private element over the public element’ (Chua, 2006). Healthcare system in the Unites States can be divided into three different groups: Medicare, Medicaid, and Managed Care. Each plan provides different coverages for different groups of people.

However, prior to the existence of the ACA, the American healthcare system left a lot to be desired and still today leaves room for improvement. The basic issues underlying efforts to improve the United States (US) health care system remain, as they have for decades, concerns for costs, access, and quality (Sultz, 2006). Even though knowledge, technology, and

Healthcare in the United States has reached a level of complexity which has perplexed Presidents, Congressional members and private industry for over a century (Palmer, 1999). While the healthcare system has evolved over the last century, policy decisions which have attempted to effectuate changes to cost, quality and access have been

Primary care is the backbone of many industrialized nations, but is the US one of them? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The US lags behind such developed nations in its accessibility of primary care by a huge difference. The United States healthcare system fails to ensure the timely preventative and primary care for its residents. The current estimates indicate that there is merely one physician for every 2,500 patients. Not only Medicare beneficiaries, but also privately insured adults struggle in accessing the right primary care physician at the right time. Moreover, maldistribution of physicians only exacerbates the problem, especially for those residing in health professional shortage areas (HPSA).15 Approximately, sixty-five million Americans live in designated primary care shortage areas.13 Such underserved population faces higher disease and death rates and health disparities that then result in higher rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits—in other words, expensive medical bills.21 More governmental control on the geographic location of primary care physicians can be a first-step to fixing the shortage problem.

While the United States delivers some of the best medical care in the world, there are major inefficiencies in our healthcare system. We have high rates of medical errors, millions without health insurance coverage, and lower utilization of advanced health information technology than most western European nations. It seems every time you turn on the evening news, you hear something about the healthcare system in American and how it is in shambles. Without question, one of the biggest challenges facing American citizens is our dysfunctional healthcare system.

When it comes to the U.S. healthcare system, there are two sides of the argument. Some Americans may argue that the U.S. healthcare system is the best in the world given the many state-of-the-art healthcare facilities and innovative and advanced medical technology available, and there are those who argue that it is too costly and inefficient on many different levels (Chua, 2006). Despite the large amount of spending invested on their healthcare system, the U.S. consistently underperforms on most indicators of performance compared to other countries (Davis, Stremikis, Squires, & Schoen, 2014). Healthcare costs such as doctor visits, hospital stays, and prescription drugs are more expensive in the U.S. than any other country in the world.

Health care systems are organizations that are formed to meet the overall health needs of the population. Health care is regarded as one of the leading cause in promoting not only physical and mental health but the well-being of the population. Legislation is implemented requiring government to offer services to all members of its society. The role of health services and the organizations that provide aid is to focus on the health of an individual and to uphold their human rights. According to WHO (2013), a “well-functioning health care system requires a robust financing mechanism, a well-trained and adequately-paid workforce, reliable information on which to base decisions and policies, and well maintained facilities and logistics to deliver quality medicines and technologies (World Health Organization; 2013).

In this paper, the USA healthcare system is being compared to the Canadian healthcare system. The U.S. health system has been described as the most competitive, heterogeneous, and inefficient, fragmented, and advanced system of care in the

The United States healthcare delivery system is a uniquely developed system that involves various features, components, and services. The US delivery system is massive, with total employment in various healthcare settings of qualified medical professionals that provide key functions to delivering quality healthcare. This essay will discuss the characteristics if the United States healthcare delivery system and how it could be developed from a free market perspective.

United States has many strengths and weaknesses within the healthcare system. In this case, we are going to focus on the strengths of the healthcare system in the United States

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).