American healthcare system Essay Example

American healthcare system Essay Example American healthcare system Paper American healthcare system Paper American healthcare system is the most expensive in the world. Sad, but true. Average expenditures for health care is about $5,540 per capita – much more than in other countries. Two different groups of Americans has different attitude to these money: sick persons want pay less and health care providers want earn more. A recent WHO survey ranked the United States as th 37th in overall health system performance. USA has honorous place between Costa Rica and Slovenia. Why? Everebody knows that the United States spends more on health care (13.7% of GDP) than any another nation. But Americans are the most dissatisfied with the quality of health care. Only 40% of Americans think that their national health care system is good. 80% Americans say the health care system needs major changes or a complete rebuilding. At the beginning of the new millenium there were more than 38 million uninsured adult Americans. In addition to the lack of health insurance among nearly 15% of the population of the United States, there are major economic and racial and ethnic disparities among uncovered persons. Nearly two thirds of the uninsured come from low-income families, and nearly three quarters of these individuals are from families with at least one full-time worker. The worse situation we have with accessibilty of health care for Hispanics. Official commentary from White House: â€Å"Many Americans enjoy access to good choices in employer-sponsored health care plans, but many others do not have good coverage options or are in danger of losing them.† President team proposed some approaches to the reform: â€Å"patient-centered health care through coverage thet you choose†, â€Å"improving the health care system by creating an environmnet thet encourages and rewards quality† and â€Å"effective support to strengthen the health care safety net and increase biomedical research†. Commentary â€Å"from the streets† (David Baron’s homepage): â€Å"I consider our current health care system to be a restricted market. By this I mean that the insurance industry is a group of profit-seeking firms, but consumers do not have free choice to switch between the market alternatives. Many of the people who defend the current system claim that a free market is best. However our current system is not a free market. Many of the problems in our current health care system are a result of the restrictions in this market. Consumers cannot register their discontent with their insurance plans because it is difficult to switch plans. Because of this difficulty, plans can fail to provide quick resolution of claims, good information, or consistent policy because customers are tied in to their current plans through their employers and through the difficulty of switching plans. Considering our current system of a restricted market, one of the simplest solutions to this problem would be to have a free market for health insurance, so that people could â€Å"vote with their feet.† Citation from Insurance Journal â€Å"The poll found that 84 percent of likely Illinois voters characterize the current state of Illinois medical liability system as a crisis or major problem, and more than three-quarters (77 percent) think the system needs major changes or a complete overhaul. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of those surveyed rate dealing with the impact of high medical liability insurance rates on health care as an extremely important issue for the Governor and state legislature to address. And 62 percent reportedly say they would be more likely to support their state legislator in this falls elections if their lawmaker voted for comprehensive reform†. So the problems on the federal and state level are the same. There are several problems in the medical insurance, inluding increase of the number of uninsured people, aging of population which will put enormous stresses on the pension and Medicare system. American insurance system need to evolve into a more sensible strategy over time†. Americans are very inpatient nation. Were very keen on new technology and procedures, and we dont have to want to wait for them or have to travel long distances. Probably, we will always spend substantially more relative to our Gross National Product than other countries. We have inequality in access to health care. There is the different attitude toward government that exists around the country. Some of the lower middle class probably are at the most risk. They may not have insurance or their insurance may not be as complete and theyre not easily eligible for assistance. Thats probably the biggest problem, the lower-middle income working uninsured population or maybe even underinsured population. An administrator of Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services, Thomas A. Scully used more strong words: â€Å"We spend billions of dollars, and we have no idea where its going. We make multi-billion-dollar mistakes.† He says â€Å"I had three goals coming into the job. One was to shake up HCFA for the better and make it much more transparent and more consumer-responsive. Secondly, I want to make the program more understandable and responsive to seniors. I think the whole health care system is much more responsive when beneficiaries know what theyre getting and they have information about quality.Third, I really want to get Medicare reform done, and Id also like to do something about the uninsured†. In his article published in the American Journal of Public Health (2003) Dr. Mohammad Akhter wrote   about advocacy of the development of universal health care system. Their approach is based on a single-payer mechanism. But Akhter considers â€Å"that a good alternative to the single-payer system that is based on incremental extension of existing coverage mechanisms, accompanied by fundamental reform of the health care delivery system. This approach is in keeping with the traditional methods of policy development in the United States, and I urge APHA to assume leadership in advocating it.† Another professional, professor Dennis G. Shea speak about three different approah in health care reform. The first one â€Å"would advocate using resources to develop systems, both public and private, for coordinating and organizing care†. Its goal to avoid errors that compromise the quality of care, duplication of efforts and espenditures, to increase responsiveness. Another approach â€Å"puts patients more at the center of their care, making them partners, as much as patients†. It means that people should be personally responsible for their health. The third approach â€Å"emphasizes that a basic commitment to care for all should be the primary value in our health system†. â€Å"This would require a redistribution of funds from those who are well-off to others to accomplish the goal. The increased governmental involvement could actually increase costs, create shortages and waiting lists, and reduce quality†. The President of National Coalition on Health Care, Henry Simmons, a physician, said: The main point I want to leave with you is that the crisis we face cannot be resolved by our present strategies or with the patchwork efforts of the past. Neither can it be resolved by dealing with only one or several of the problems we face. Resolution will require comprehensive health system reform. Health providers consider Medicaid and Medicare to be the most efficient health plans today. And they tell that the private sector insurance BIG BUSINESSES are inefficient, and charge outrageous premiums to their customers while decreasing benefits and reimbursements. CIGNA, United Healthcare, BC/BS, Medcost, Aetna and other companies are the major cause for our health care crisis. They should be eliminated and replaced with one universal plan. How was that perception shaped by the purchasers of health care? Customer hopes for better. They see that Americans who cant afford to pay huge medical bills usually get treatment anyway, through a mixture of private and public charity. But this happens only after treatments are delayed, families are driven into bankruptcy and insurers spend billions trying not to provide care. People think that we need an universal health paln for all Americans. Health coverage should be a right, not a privilege. References: http://dbaron.org/views/health.html http://forum.johnkerry.com/lofiversion/index.php/t43005.html ajph.org/cgi/content/full/93/1/99 insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2004/07/23/44355.htm whitehouse.gov/infocus/medicare/health-care/