Health Care System in the USA

A health care system is a phrase used to collectively refer to people, institutions, laws and policies that are involved in the provision of health services to target populations (Parand Dictionary 123).

Here, people refer to trained medical practitioners such as surgeons, physicians and nurses as well as the sick people who seek medical attentionHealthcare care can largely be described as the protection of mental and physical health by preventing or treating illness through services offered by the health profession. In a different statement health care embraces all the goods and services intended to support health, including “preventive, curative interventions, whether directed to individuals or to the population at large.Health care systems are mainly comprised of individuals and organizations that aspire to meet the health care needs of target individuals and populations. There are a wide variety of health care systems around the world. In some countries, the health care system planning is distributed among market participants, whereas in others planning is made more centrally among trade unions, charities, religious, governments or other co-ordinate bodies to deliver planned health care services targeted to the populations they serve.It’s generally a well known fact that developed countries have higher life expectancies and lower infant mortality rates than third world countries.

This can be attributed to better and more organized health care systems as a result of more government funding as well as higher access to health insurance by a huge proportion of developed countries’ populationsIt is only by being able to reliably tell the quality of health care provision that a government can implement policies to make its population live healthier and happier lives. The three primary goals of a good health care system are good health, responsiveness and fairness in financing (World Health Organization). In the United States the population is very high and growing rapidly every day and the need for more and improved healthcare systems has risen. Although the economy of the United States is also growing employment is not growing at the same rate. Most health care systems mainly benefit those who are employed because in most cases when one is a worker of a company one is insured by the medical cover used by the company.

In this case a person going to a hospital individually without being covered by any medical cover ends up paying more money than that one who is under medical cover.Health care is a very critical issue in most countries not only due to the fact that it touches on almost everyone’s life but also due to its complexity as a result of being inter-twinned in an intricate web of issues of national importance such as disparity in wealth distribution, a country’s financial status and politicsHealthcare in the United States is mainly owed and provided by private sectors. Most of the population in the united states is either completely not insured or underinsured that is (not fully insured).it is believed the united states uses a lot of money on health care per person than any other nation in the world]Despite the fact that not all citizens are covered, the United States has the third highest public healthcare expenditure per capita. Many countries have tried to have most of their population insured contradicting the fact that the United States being a wealthy and developed nation has not taken the initiative to have all the citizens insurance covered.

In different years of analysis and research the analyst have annually concluded that most of the American population have died in large numbers due to lack of health insurance and also lack of or poor medical care. The economy of the United States has greatly been influenced by the health care systems it has been said that United States companies pay very high costs for their employee’s health care which has put them to a competitive difficulty with other nations this has greatly affected the economy of the united states in different ways a good health to most or all the population helps to bring forth a strong and healthy working nation and therefore creating a good economy since all employees are provided with proper medicare.A good health care system should strive to ensure fairness in financing. But what does this exactly mean? Fairness in health care means ensuring that everyone is protected and has access to health services regardless of his/her financial status.Different countries have adopted different approaches in a bid to ensure fairness in health care. For instance, Canada has a single payer system that is publicly funded known as Medicare.

This system is sponsored by government through taxes. It ensures universal coverage as each Canadian, rich or poor, gets equal treatment by the health system.In contrast, the American health system is largely privately funded though it has significant components of public funding. In fact, America is the only developed country, with the exception of South Africa, that lacks universal health care. As of 2007, 45.

7 million Americans lacked health insurance cover (Richard 115)Furthermore, there are great disparities in the infant mortality rates and life expectancies between different racial groups in the U.S. Thus, despite America having the most expensive health care system in the world, it scores poorly in fairness. This brings down the economy growth rate especially in the United States.United states faces a lot of issues due to health care system since healthcare is growing very fast the employers are responding to growing cost by shifting more and more healthcare cost to workers through larger co-pays and deductions that must be paid at the time treatment is required.The families that are working are experiencing very high increase in the cost of health insurance cover high cost of drugs and prescriptions.

With these disadvantages of the healthcare systems the economy of the United States has greatly been affected although a lot is being done to try and help the situation in the recent years.In the recent years healthcare systems have greatly improved whereby more citizens are being employed to occupy the less staffed like the nurses and doctors especially in the United States this has brought a great improvement to the economy compared to the past years.Finally, a good health care system should be responsive to people’s expectations. Client/patient relationships, especially with regard to patients’ expectations of being treated with utmost dignity and respect, are extremely important in the evaluation of the responsiveness of any health system. People also expect to receive proper medical attention within the smallest possible time interval in case of an emergency.

The United States is usually hailed as having the most responsive health care system in the world.In conclusion, though this paper has only covered a small aspect of health care systems, its description of what constitutes a good health care system encompasses the key information that is critical in the evaluation of any health care system. It’s only by using these criterions that we can judge the performance and effectiveness of our respective health care systems and therefore make corrective measures and institute policies and reforms that will ultimately lead to better health care for all citizens. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” (Patrick 234)