The Pros and Cons of the Different Health Care Systems Essay

Introduction

For quite a considerable time now, the United States of America has had a comparatively poor medical policy compared to all other developed countries in the world. As a result, the US has been observed to have an unfavorable quality healthcare. Moreover, this care has been unaffordable to many individuals, especially the poor.

Therefore, the private insurance companies exploited their clients as the government did not have a concrete plan of ‘bailing out’ its citizens. Poor citizens and immigrants could not afford taking the insurance at all. It is for this cause that President Obama instigated the Health Care Reforms. He targeted bringing about changes in the existing system to ensure quality and affordable care for all Americans.

The US Needs the Health Care System Reform

The debate of whether the United States should have initiated the healthcare reform should be based on the premise that, there is increased need for care and the fact that health issues are particularly critical for the survival of a nation and that the previous system had deficiencies. Therefore, discussions should not be as to whether there should be reforms or not but rather the best way to cause these reforms (Marleise 2007: 10). Healthcare reforms were not only inescapable but also highly desirable.

The reasons for arguing that reforms were enviable include among others;

1. The numbers of the United States citizens who are uninsured over health had increased to a great number (Marleise 2007: 11). It is estimated to be over 45 million including immigrants were uninsured in 2007.
2. The healthcare in the US had become increasingly unaffordable for many Americans because of their economic situation
3. With quality care and free access to medical services, many Americans would be encouraged to seek preventative care and research their problems early enough, so that treatment is efficient and cheap. It is suspected that currently, patients usually avoid these physicals and primary (preventative) care because the expense.
4. The care providers will have more time to concentrate on the purvey of care rather than processing the insurance claims, liability from malpractice and other issues that smudge the existing healthcare system (Marleise 2007: 10).
5. There will be no much paperwork, like claims documents, insurance procedures plus patients with preexisting conditions will still access care without restrictions or obstacles.

Obamacare Addresses the Deficiencies of the Previous System

Approximately, Americans spent trillions of dollars (over 2.5 trillion) on medication, and this figure is about 17% of the country’s GDP. Considering that the healthcare costs are paid for by the tax payers, who finance about 50% of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the previous system needed change (Dranove, and Millenson 2006: 80). There were many cases of fraud and abuse in the old system.

The complexity and vastness of the industry, as well as the use of taxpayers’ money, needed a remarkably comprehensive bill than the Obamacare. Nonetheless, these counterarguments alone are not sufficient to hinder care provision since there are many fundamental issues that will be adequately addressed by the new system by 2014 (Dranove, and Millenson 2006: 79). Since the law is still under implementation, it is not easy to determine exactly whether the provisions effectively solve the problems identified in the previous system of healthcare or not.

The goal of Obamacare is to ensure that there is increased health insurance cover to many Americans without many restrictions. The provisions of the bill also seek to ensure that those already covered need to have better services. The law will also ensure that access is made easy and that the care providers provide better quality services (Dranove, and Millenson 2006: 83). Above all, the new system of health will manage the ever increasing costs of care.

This new reforms have addressed the most serious problems of the previous health system. The cost and access to quality care by those uninsured Americans in particular (Dranove, and Millenson 2006: 82). High costs of health are a serious problem, and even the federal and state budgets are strained to a breaking point.

This is also particularly hard on the businesses which are paying insurance on behalf of or for their workers. These increasing expenses considerably outpace economic growth and, as a result, medical costs have been among the leading causes of bankruptcy among the Americans (Marmor, Oberlander, and White 2009: 486).

The US: Should We Engage in Further Reform by Adopting Aspects of Britain’s Health Care System

Americans need to borrow a leaf from Britain’s health system. Everyone is covered in Britain while the US has over 45 million people who are not covered or are not entitled to any care at all. This means their access is restricted unless they can present in emergency cases where providers are prohibited from turning them away or refusing to treat them (Marmor, Oberlander, and White 2009: 486). Nonetheless, even in these emergency cases, it has been found that patients without insurance received less attention from providers.

Studies show that uninsured Americans get 20% less care attention, and their death rate was 37 higher compared to insured patients. The absence of the universal care in the US has resulted in extra numerous deaths per year and that about 13,000 extra deaths were due to lack of insurance (Marmor, Oberlander, and White 2009: 487).

There are unusually many US citizens who have been reported to forego healthcare because of the cost of medication. Slightly over half of the patients in the US have refused to fill prescriptions, not visited a doctor when ailing or not sought the proper or recommended care at all because of the restrictions involved (Marmor, Oberlander, and White 2009: 488).

The UK citizens are rated 13% less likely to behave this way since access is easy and care is affordable. Even for insured Americans, 43% complained of costly medical costs. Based on a report by David Hammerstein, over 60% of the Americans getting bankrupt, most of the cases were caused by medical expenses even for the insured Americans (Marmor, Oberlander, and White 2009: 488).

Works Cited

Dranove, David, and Michael Millenson. 2006. “Medical Bankruptcy: Myth versus Fact.” Health Affairs 25.2(September): 74 – 83.

Marleise, Rashford. 2007. “A Universal Healthcare System: Is It Right for the United States?” Nursing Forum 42.1 (February): 3 – 11.

Marmor, Theodore, Jonathan Oberlander, and Joseph White. 2009. “The Obama Administration’s Options for Health Care Cost Control: Hope versus Reality.” Annals of Internal Medicine 150.7(May): 485-489.