Health Care System Is Unfair
While excellent medical care is available in the United States, health care economics and the service delivery system present many challenges for the consumer and practitioner alike. This paper addresses four dimensions that are pivotal to the successes and failures of the system: cost, efficiency, choice and equity. The interplay of these dimensions across the canvas of health care options defines a system in flux, policymakers seeking a fair balance, and a nation in need of quality, affordable, accessible care.
How do Americans pay for health care?
The cost of health care in the U.S. is the highest in the world today. A higher percentage of national income, and more per capita, is spent on medical care by the United States than by any of the twenty-eight other country members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The United States spent $4,178 per capita on health care in 1998, more than twice the OECD median of $1,783, and far more than its closest competitor, Switzerland ($2,794). U.S. health care spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), 13.6 percent in 1998, also exceeded the next most expensive health care systems, in Germany (10.6 percent) and Switzerland (10.4 percent) However, the U.S. government finances a smaller portion of health-care spending than does any OECD country except Korea (Friedman, 2001; Hilsenrath et al., 2004).
Being without medical insurance is synonymous with a lack of access to medical care. In the absence of a coherent, all-encompassing national health policy, such as universal coverage, Americans, under the age of 65 and above the low-income mark, face the necessity of obtaining some sort of private health insurance.
However, more than forty-two million Americans (15.5 percent) were not insured in 1999 (Bureau of Labor Education at the University of Maine, 2001). Most of the uninsured have no employer-provided health care options and are unable or unwilling to bear the cost
How do Americans pay for health care?
The cost of health care in the U.S. is the highest in the world today. A higher percentage of national income, and more per capita, is spent on medical care by the United States than by any of the twenty-eight other country members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The United States spent $4,178 per capita on health care in 1998, more than twice the OECD median of $1,783, and far more than its closest competitor, Switzerland ($2,794). U.S. health care spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), 13.6 percent in 1998, also exceeded the next most expensive health care systems, in Germany (10.6 percent) and Switzerland (10.4 percent) However, the U.S. government finances a smaller portion of health-care spending than does any OECD country except Korea (Friedman, 2001; Hilsenrath et al., 2004).
Being without medical insurance is synonymous with a lack of access to medical care. In the absence of a coherent, all-encompassing national health policy, such as universal coverage, Americans, under the age of 65 and above the low-income mark, face the necessity of obtaining some sort of private health insurance.
However, more than forty-two million Americans (15.5 percent) were not insured in 1999 (Bureau of Labor Education at the University of Maine, 2001). Most of the uninsured have no employer-provided health care options and are unable or unwilling to bear the cost