Compared to the rest of the countries in the world, the United States is actually at the top for providing healthcare in one form or another for her citizens. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation. The healthcare in the United States is a combination of privately and publicly funded programs which cover nearly 60 million Americans. The publicly funded programs are those provided by the government, but they very rarely cover all the health needs of the average citizen. The privately funded programs are the ones that are run by private, medical corporations and hospitals (i.e. Kaiser Permanante). The privately owned medical programs are usually better in terms of providing patient needs, though the costs are considerably higher. Of course, there are many things that health insurance and premiums don't cover, such as some prescription drugs or illness and injuries that just so happen to fit through a loophole in the premium's coverage. So what I'm really trying to say here is that everything comes down to money. The healthcare in the United States is getting increasingly expensive and although the medical technologies and programs is better in the U.S. than in other countries, it's begin to seem more expensive than it needs to be. At this point, there are families in the United States that are choosing healthcare over proper food.
At the moment, the United States is leading the way in the field of medicine and its related technologies. From developing innovative ways to cure cancer to finding out how to enlarge specific parts of the human body, the number of different types of medical processes that an American citizen can participate in are almost infinite. However, as stated before, the costs are simply getting out of hand. Americans are not getting value for the money that they spend on healthcare. Currently, almost 45 million people in the United States don't have proper health insurance simply because it's too expensive. Most of those 45 million are workers who aren't provided with health premiums because their companies either don't pay them enough or are using the Wal-Mart-Part-Time-Pay ruse to cheat their. Furthermore, 27 million of those 45 million are senior citizens who don't have a steady income anymore because they've retired. A study showed that the average healthcare cost per American was around $6,700 a month, which totals to over 2 TRILLION dollars promptly paid to public and private health organizations. At the current rate of health cost increase, the total healthcare cost of all Americans is projected to reach 4 trillion dollars by 2015.
Although it seems as if the government needs to take a larger role in all this, most of the fault actually goes to employers and the health care organizations. Employers need to stop concentrating only on their profit and worry about their employees. If some employers would stop abusing their part-time workers, such as Wal-Mart, then a good chunk of our healthcare problems would disappear. Healthcare organizations are also to be blamed. Many privately owned hospitals are increasing their charges not simply because hospital running costs are rising, but because they want more profit. Some hospitals are putting money before their patients' well-beings. As for the government, President George W. Bush and a large number of employers and insurers have met up and agreed to do a complete overhaul of the US Healthcare System. These past few decades, the US Health System has been dragged down by government-imposed mandates, wasteful bureaucracy, and massive distortions in the US tax code that punish self-employed and low-income worker. The government is going to try to increase the number of publicly funded health programs and decrease the costs of healthcare. Bush and co. are focusing on the measures that are sensitive to medical care making a difference, such as infant mortality and healthy lives after the age of 60.
To conclude, healthcare in the United States is the best in the world, though the costs are getting outrageous. At this rate, many people soon won't be able to afford healthcare. The main goal that our government and other medical organizations are trying to make is to keep the quality and standard of US medicine and treatments while keeping it affordable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/03/a_free_market_cure_for_us_healthcare_system/
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/healthcare/whatswrong/
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/medical_errors.html
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml
http://healthfieldmedicare.suite101.com/article.cfm/universal_health_insurance_in_us
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18674951/
No comments:
Post a Comment