healthcare in the United States of America

healthcare in the United States of America

The health sector is one of the most critical areas in the world today. The main aim is to provide quality healthcare for the United States citizens and impact everyone consequently.  This paper will focus on healthcare in the United States by looking at the current trending issues, which is the affordability of healthcare in the United States. It is important to note that the United States of America is one of the most developed and advanced countries. Their economic system is on par with that of Canada and big countries such as Russia. So why is the health sector in the U.S still under-developed and struggling? This is the question most people ask. The political agendas and economic differences that exist in the United States today hamper the realization of a universal system of healthcare. This paper will help us understand healthcare in the United States of America by looking at all the impacting issues. The most impacting problem in the U.S right now is affordability.

This is according to national state polls that collected the feedback regarding the concerns of the American citizens. Approximately sixty-two percent of the Americans surveyed were concerned with the affordability of healthcare in the United States. The problem of affordability in the United States is primarily a cost problem. Healthcare in the United States costs a significant amount. On average, 9,695 $was spent on every man, woman, and child who accessed healthcare in the United States. This means that on average, two people in the same household will spend approximately 24, 625 dollars on healthcare. This is a tremendous amount of money, considering that the median income for most families in the United States is 53,697 dollars. This means that almost fifty percent of a household’s income is spent on healthcare. This is if costs and revenues were evenly distributed across the country. It is, however, essential to note that costs in the U.S are not evenly distributed. For one, one percent of the Americans is responsible for twenty percent of the costs in healthcare. The other half of the population spends almost nothing on healthcare costs. Due to these differences, the United States relies on health insurance to level the playing field.

Health insurance is a crucial factor in the United States. For one, it enables the access of medical care to the citizens at any given time. The health insurance in the company works by creating a pool of money in which all citizens can rely on. The logic behind this is that not all citizens will be sick at one particular time. The pool of money can, therefore, be tailored to meet the most urgent needs of the people who can’t necessarily afford private healthcare. It is important to note that if there were no health insurance, only a few Americans would get the healthcare they need. Obamacare made it possible for Americans to access medical care at all times. While this system may not have been perfect, it contributed to healthcare in the United States significantly. It helped establish a system of balance where all Americans could seek medical help. The government plans to recall this Act and establish new other policies to guide the American citizens. This is a major contributing factor to the problem of healthcare in the United States. This is because citizens have come to depend on this system. Recalling this system will mean canceling the insurance covers of most citizens in the United States. It is already established that the majority of the United States cannot afford healthcare. This creates a big problem for United States citizens.

It is essential to establish that a cash and carry system is inherently impossible for the United States of America. This is because of the gap that exists in the distribution of wealth and resources in the United States. Approximately 50% of the national income is benefited by 10% of the population. The distribution of wealth in this country is even more unequal. 10% of the population owns about three-quarters of the country’s assets, while 3% own half of the nation’s assets. Studies have suggested that the active community of the United States with incomes between one hundred and two hundred and fifty percent of the poverty level owned net assets worth four hundred dollars. A section of the population that had incomes ranging from 250 to 400 percent owned net assets worth 2089$. This suggests that many Americans do not have enough finances to pay for healthcare out of their own pockets, much less afford the deductible insurance fee.

The affordable care act was aimed towards improving health care in the United States. The United States government spends nearly half of its income on healthcare. This is directed towards the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The federal government subsidizes organizations based on employer-based coverage. This is in the exclusion of employee contributions and coverage from income and taxes. The main goal of the ACA was to improve healthcare access. It has achieved this by improving access for the majority of Americans by prohibiting pre-existing conditions and imposing renewal programs for its users. The ACA has also enabled the creation of a risk adjustment program for individuals and small communities. All these programs are tailored towards ensuring equality and moving healthcare costs from individuals with high healthcare costs to individuals with low healthcare costs.

The ACA also ensured that health insurance coverage for lower-income Americans was accessible by increasing the affordability. The ACA ensured the inclusion of everyone in the Medicaid programs by abandoning the distinctions between the deserving and undeserving American citizens. This access is granted to Americans with incomes not exceeding a hundred and thirty-eight of the federal poverty level. Its progress was, however, hampered with the Supreme Court resisting this expansion. This affected three million individuals in different states as they had no access to medical care. Another contribution of the ACA if offering premium tax credits to a sect of the population. People with incomes between a hundred and four hundred percent of the federal poverty level get these tax credits. The ACA compensates for this by increasing taxation on households earning above 250000$ a year.

With all these measures in place, affordability remains an issue in the U.S. As the ACA’s market reforms became effective, many people in the United States premiums rose sharply. This created the need to include the previously excluded individuals because of high healthcare costs. Secondly, cost-sharing is arguably high for many people in individual and sole coverage. For example, the deductible amount for a person with personal coverage is three thousand dollars. This amount is not easily accessible as most families in the U.S liquidate their assets.

The ACA approach that aims to create affordable coverage for the citizens of the United States is also complicated. For one, coverage for the average population of the United States is subsidized by advanced premium tax credits. This is hard for most American citizens as not all of them can reconcile their incomes accurately and on time. It is also important to note that the ACA has enormous penalties for organizations that fail to provide their employees with insurance. However, the coverage that employers need to provide to ensure that they abide by this law is inadequate and unreliable. This is the second reason why healthcare in the United States is still unaffordable. Thirdly, the ACA imposes substantial penalties on individuals who can afford health care coverage but choose not to partake in it. This creates a lot of temptations for the citizens. Most of them prefer to pay for the penalty instead of taking health insurance coverage. This renders this system inadequate as it digs into the pool of funds that it had initially created.

In conclusion, there are so many factors that make health insurance in the United States of America unaffordable. For one, there are policies and laws drawn out that have to prove to be inadequate. Secondly, the political system and selfish agendas of some people as rendered the efforts towards universal healthcare ineffective. It is important to note that this is an impacting factor in the U.S it affects the people and their way of living. Healthcare is the most critical industries, and everyone should be able to access their services. It is essential to dig deeper into this issue if the course of direction for the healthcare industry in the United States will be changed.