Healthcare in the US
What economists say about the US healthcare and comparison to other countries
According to economists, the government is failing to provide covered healthcare for its citizens in line with historical laws and that the major factor affecting responses to any government initiative is lack of trust in the government ( Americas Senior Moment 2005). When the public lacks confidence in the government, then it will tend to thwart every form of reform that it comes up with even if the reform has positive impacts because people think that the government may have some strings attached to it.
The most criticized idea is about the employers mandate. This is making all except the smallest employers provision of healthcare a requirement, with the choice of contributing to a public fund instead. This and the benefits from an underlying value that employers have a responsibility where their employees health insurance is concerned have been tested with the public many times.
Another element that has already been known to be problematic before economists about the public is the individual mandate which would require everyone to have health insurance, with financial help if necessary. The alarming thing about it is that those who will not comply will be spurred by penalties. Also, the idea of savings can be found in the healthcare system - especially in Medicare - through streamlining, cutting waste and tracking down fraud and abuse. This has triggered a forceful reply that the heath of senior citizens would be endangered by any process of looking for cost savings in Medicare.
People mostly exposed to healthcare
In the US, all people want to have access to a better healthcare within the shortest time possible, and the poorest members of the society need reliable access to doctors and hospitals. That is what President Obama is advocating, and in his first year in office, he proposed a health reform that was intense and multidimensional to the economics of the heath care industry. He was after increasing access for millions of Americans who do not have health insurance and uplifting the level of service for the poor people and preexisting illnesses.
There has been a lot of heated debate on how to access resources to increase the healthcare services for those who do not have enough, and other critics argued that the money would be used to pursue a different project. The money, however, according to the reform, would be obtained from cardilac plan services and, in this case, healthcare was to be imposed on other goods to sacrifice individuals with high premiums. The legislation was to tackle policies with annual premiums of 8, 000 and more, and 23, 000 for individuals and families respectively (W. Gallstone 2009).
Why healthcare is most expensive in the US
For many years, politicians and insurance companies could blithely proclaim that the US had the best healthcare system in the world but major shortcomings became more visible. Approximately 42.6 million people in the US currently without health insurance are acutely aware that the healthcare system is not working for every one, and there is a growing concern that the major problems of rising costs and lack of access constitute a real crisis. Policy makers at times have attempted to address the symptoms of the health crisis in the US through short-term, patch work solutions under the pressure of time constraints in political decision making, rather than analyzing the system itself as a whole.
The US has by far the most expensive healthcare system in the world based on health expenditures per person, and on total expenditures as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For example, in 1998, it spent a whopping 4,178 per capita on healthcare more than twice the OECD median of 1,783, far more than its closest competitor Switzerland which is 2,784. The US health spending as a percentage of GDP was 13.6 which is also outdistancing the next most expensive health systems, i.e., Germany and Switzerland with 10.6 and 10.4 respectively (C. Schoen et al. 2005).
The graph below shows the health spending per capita for some selected OECD countries in comparison with the US.
Cited from httpdll.umaine.edubleU.S.20HCweb.pdf
The reasons to the high cost of healthcare in the US can be attributed to a number of factors, ranging from the rising costs of medical technology and prescription drugs to the high administrative costs resulting from the complex multiple payer system in the US. For instance, it is estimated that between 19.3 and 24.1 of the total dollars spent on healthcare in the US is spent simply on administration costs. The growing shift from nonprofit hospital chains has contributed to the increased costs in healthcare.
The high proportion of people who are uninsured in the US - 15.5 in 1999 - contributed directly to expensive healthcare because conditions that could be either prevented or treated inexpensively in the early stages often develop into health crises (W. Gallstone 2009). The treatment of crisis conditions later on is much more expensive, for instance, emergency room treatment, or intensive care when an untreated illness progresses to a more serious stage. Also, the aging of the population in the US is a major contributor to increases in the cost of healthcare.
Approximate cost of providing healthcare to all US citizens
According to figures available for 1997-1999, 42.6 million people in America were uninsured in 1999, which is slightly down from the 1997 and 1998 figures. It is an embarrassment to many policy makers in the US that there is no universal coverage. However, more seriously, it is a matter of life and death for people who do not have access to care in many cases.
The following table represents the expenditure of the US in healthcare in comparison with other countries whose expenditure is believed to be high.
Cited from httpdll.umaine.edubleU.S.20HCweb.pdf
The lack of health insurance for a significant portion of Americans also has other far-reaching consequences, as hospitals and other care providers are forced into cost shifting at the expense of taxpayers and higher premiums for those who are with private insurance (C. Schoen et al. 2005). One possible approach that has been advocated by some healthcare experts is to simply expand Medicare, an existing and highly successful public program which could be extended beyond the elderly to the entire population.