American Health Care System
Numerous separate organizations offer health care in the United States. The majority of facilities that provide healthcare are widely operated and owned by private sector businesses. The non-profit community hospitals in the United States are 58 percent, government-owned are 21 percent, and 21 percent for profit-making hospitals. The coverage of health care is provided by a combination of public health coverage and private health insurance. Universal health care program does not exist in the United States, unlike in other developed countries. The ownership of the healthcare facilities is mainly owned by private personnel, although the state, federal, city, and county governments also own some facilities.
Health care should be provided to all Americans through government services
Among 36 nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States is the only one that does not include either practice or by constitutional right provides universal health care. Health care exponents argue that everybody in developed nations globally has constitutional health care right. The health care right would eradicate medical bankruptcies, reduce initial expenditure in health care, improve public health, and help small businesses to thrive. Therefore, health care should be a critical government service.
All men should have an inalienable right to healthcare following the United States Declaration of Independence documents. In the United States, the right to healthcare would significantly lower the cost of health care. Recent research by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that the total private and public expenditure in health care could be minimized by up to $1.8 trillion in the next ten years, within a single-payer structure due to prescription and administrative drug costs.
Federal provision of universal health care could save lives for Americans. Following research by Harvard scholars, the unavailability of health insurance to all citizens is linked with as many as 44,789 death cases per year. Additionally, another research shows that over 13,000 deaths happen every year in the age bracket between 55-60 years due to the unavailability of health insurance coverage. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The right to health care is internationally recognized as a human right. The United States and 47 other nations signed a Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the United Nations in 1948. The document encompassed everyone with the right to adequate living standards for the well-being and health of the population, including medical care right.
Universal health care could ensure that medical services are reasonably priced to all citizens. Compensating for healthcare poses the main monetary challenge for the United States households. Following a survey in 2018 by Becker’s Healthcare, 22 percent of Americans found it very difficult or impossible to cater for their health care expenses. Further, 64 percent of Americans reported to delay or never seek medical care resulting from high cost.
Providing health care right for all citizens is essential to economic production. Facilitating health care access by all people guarantees them healthier lives reducing their absence at the workplace, giving them a chance to build a more productive economy. According to research conducted by the University of Colorado and Pennsylvania, employee’s health insurance coverage misses an average of four workdays in comparison to employees without health insurance. Moreover, a report by the Institute of Medicine shows that the United States economy loses $65-$130 billion annually due to diminished workforce productivity. Poor health and premature deaths are what results in reduced productivity, especially among those who are not insured. Furthermore, when delivering his speech, Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank President, stated that all nations should offer a right to health care to help improve growth in the economy.
Access to health care by all citizens could improve public health. With regard to a study in Lancet, evidence suggests that broader health coverage generally leads to better access to necessary care and improved public health, particularly among the poor people. Therefore, health care companies should cease to be privately owned.
Benefits of the tax-funded healthcare system
The tax-financed health care system typically provides healthcare to anyone residing in a country for free at the point of service delivery. The comprehensive access to free health care services ensures that medical personnel and services are paid through government revenues. The tax-funded system of healthcare is advantageous in several ways.
The system pools the risk for the whole population. Tax revenues pool the health risks effectively across a large contributing population. The citizens contribute to the establishment of quality health care through paying taxes in purchases, income, capital gains, property, and other items and activities. The structure mobilizes funds from all residents in spite of their occupation and income level.
The tax-financed health care system gives the potential for administrative efficiency and cost control. The allocation of funds within the health sector is also determined by political processes. The allocation is also balanced between rich, poor regions, urban, and rural areas. The allocation decisions are influenced by political parties, civil society unions, and health care personnel.
The tax-funded systems enhance efficiency in service provision. The political system has an impact on efficiently integrating and programming multiple funds and payment mechanisms to ease administration.
Financing health services through general taxation is an essential aspect in that the decisions on how to use these funds are sifted through the legislative procedures. Health care decisions are prompted by collective decision procedures instead of market forces or private entities.
Limitations of the tax-funded health care system
The tax-financed healthcare system creates a risk of underfunding and unstable funding resulting from competing for public expenditure.
The contractual provisions with health care service providers are typically associated with civil service conditions and scales, thus making it tough to adjust to health sector dynamics and terms. The management of personnel determines the productivity level of the personnel. The system reduces employee productivity by making it tough to redeploy and discipline the staff
The system could be ineffective and inefficient due to the lack of supervision and public incentives.
The ethical duty of a government to provide affordable and accessible health care to its people
Accessibility to public health is among the essential areas a government should invest in. Initial diagnosis and prevention, which is relatively low-priced, can avert dreadful and expensive health care complications in a population’s life. The government’s ethical responsibilities outspread beyond voluntary amenities and activities to include supplementary authorities such as compulsory vaccination laws and confinement.
The government should ensure adequate infrastructure for local public health care. Assuring sufficient local public health care infrastructure involves maintaining basic capacities initial to facilitate a well functioning public health system. For instance, a good public health system entails health planning, data analysis, decision support, and utilization, community mobilization, partnership development, communication, quality improvement, evaluation, and public health research.
It is an ethical role for a government to promote healthy behaviors and a healthy community. The promotion of community health and practices refers to activities pivoted towards achieving improved population health. The activities include; communities’ engagement in policy developments, investing in healthy families, prevention of adverse health, addressing issues on equity health, health disparities. It is also the role of the government to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. The diseases transmitted by infectious agents should be prevented by detecting acute infectious diseases early. Moreover, it is the government to report infectious diseases, prevention and disease transmission, and control measures implemented during the outbreak of the infectious disease.
The government should prevent citizens against health risks that are environmental. Protecting against environmental health perils involves addressing the aspects of human health risk in relation to the environment. The government should play a role in the identification and mitigation of environmental risks such as radiation and waterborne diseases to promote a healthy environment. As a result, the government should develop policies to monitor and guarantee a quality environment.
The government should be prepared and respond to health care emergencies. It is an ethical responsibility of the government to formulate and respond to medical tragedies concerning public health care. The health department should respond to incidences and events and help the community in the recovery by developing and occasionally reviewing the response strategies for public health threats. The government should also uphold readiness for a public health system’s labor force, placement, and response. The government should ethically assure provision of health services to the community. The government should avail the health care facilities and services to the local communities. It can be done through the government partnering with the community partners to improve the efficiency of health systems available to the locals. Therefore, it should not be up to individuals to independently obtain treatment.
Comparison of health care systems in other countries
A research conducted in 2014 by The Commonwealth Fund shows that the health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the globe. Yet, it ranks last on many dimensions of performance as compared with Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The research found that the United States failed to achieve better outcomes in terms of equity, access, and efficiency.
For instance, the Malaysia tax-funded system dates back since its independence in 1957 when the national government took over the control of health care facilities that were formerly operated several Malay Federation states. The tax-funded system assures universal access to healthcare amenities for minimal fees. The universal healthcare services only cost the government of Malaysia only 1.5 percent of the GDP. The health care structure is centralized with the national treasury paying most of the budget. Due to decentralization, the states of Malaysia are taking more responsibilities in the operation of public health services. The nursing and medical staff are state employees, and their working conditions and pay are in accordance with civil service regulations.
In Sweden, universal health care was adopted in 1955. Remarkably, 66 percent of health expenditure is funded with county tax revenues. The local government highly focuses on the provision of government-provided health services, thus making the management of health care service a prominent feature of the local government, elections, and politics. Government regulations reduced the number of civil societies to achieve the economies of scale. Gradually, the government made an increase in the number and categories of people to be covered. Therefore, a gap developed between professionals with individual and communal contracts. Sweden’s government almost adopted universal health care in 1935. However, the economic catastrophe forestalled the enactment during that period. The health service system in Sweden has succeeded in many measures. It has improved the life expectancy of the population increased to 80 years.
Limitations on having healthcare companies being privately owned
The private health care companies charge more costly as compared to the public healthcare system. For American citizens to access decent health care, it is certain beyond any reasonable doubt that they pay more money. Nevertheless, the government saves a significant amount of money through the private healthcare system rather than a public system of healthcare.
Private ownership of healthcare creates inequality among citizens. The privatization of healthcare providers and the insurance companies offers priority treatment to the citizens according to their willingness and ability to pay. The treatment procedure is not based on the severity of the medical condition but rather on the basis of who pays more money. On the contrary, the public system treatment procedures are based on who gets there first and the severity of the medical condition. Also, the high-income earners have their medical insurance covered by their employers, whereas low-income earners do not have medical insurance covers.
The privately-owned healthcare system has drastically increased the number of preventable deaths among Americans. In accordance with a study conducted by Harvard Medical School, found that nearly 45,000 deaths annually were associated with a lack of health coverage. The population of uninsured Americans has rapidly increased, eventually increasing the number of preventable deaths.
There have been delays in looking for medical care and amplified the use of emergency care. The Americans who are not insured are less likely to use preventive and health care services. The citizens are more likely to delay in searching for health care, which results in increased medical crisis. The delayed access to medical care leads to a more expensive treatment for some conditions, especially with chronic conditions. The uninsured citizens are more likely to encounter delayed treatment as compared to the insured.
The treatment procedures given to a patient in a privately owned health facility can significantly vary with health care workers they use. Some treatments which are cost-effective are not used frequently as they ought to be. Indeed, the drug prescription varies significantly from the geographical location. The private health system makes the patients feel more of an economic burden, making them receive healthcare only when necessary.
The absence of mental health coverage for Americans bears significant ramifications to the social system and the United States economy. The statistics show that one out of six adults in the U.S has a mental disorder. The mental illness ranks the second leading cause of disability for all Americans. The mental disorders were ranked as the top five most leading medical conditions.