National Health Care System In The US

National Health Care System

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Martin Luther King, Jr. A national health care system is a program operated by the government, designed to provide health care for people in need of medical assistance. All industrial nations except the United States have a national health care system that covers everyone. Generally, in the U.S. health care systems are privately funded insurance companies. The U.S. has three forms of governmental health care; Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for lower income families, and the Children‘s Health Insurance Program. The problem with these health care systems is that many people fall short of qualifying. Is the U.S. in dire
Hospitals would receive an annual expense account for patient care and another account for medical expenses. Doctors would be paid salaries or by capitation. Employers would pay less than 10 percent payroll tax and employees would only pay 2 percent, replacing employer-employee insurance premiums that are more costly. Not all doctors would have to participate. There would still be private doctors and clinics. Each state would have a board overseeing decisions they will be highly educated doctors. The U.S. can be considered the wealthiest nation with the greatest technology for health care services to provide for everyone. “We need to make only one basic change. We need to discard the antiquated, cruel, wasteful, ineffective, corporate model health plans and replace them with an efficient, publicly administered, universal risk pool” (McCanne and Woolhandler). It is the right time to adopt a national health care system that will guarantee quality, accessibility and cost containment in order to have an equal health care
13 Sept. 2001 Daniels, Norman. Benchmarks of Fairness for Health Care Reform. London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996. “Facts on Health Care Quality: Quality is Doing the Right Thing Right the First Time.” The National Coalition on Health Care Feb. 2001. Himmelstein, DU., et al. “A national health program for the United States. A physicians’ proposal.” Center for National Health Program Studies, Cambridge Hospital- Harvard Medical School 320 (1989) 102-108. Luchok, Joseph. Three Major Studies on the Health Care System, The Health Insurance Association of America, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration, 2001. McCanne, Don M.D., et al., “The Corporate Model has Failed: We Need to Create a Publicly Administered, Universal Risk Pool.” Physicians for a National Health Program. (retrieved), 23 Oct. 2001. Mueller, Keith. “Health Care Policy in the United States.” University of Nebraska Press, 1993. “National Health Care Issues.” Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. 7 Nov. 2001 Orient, Jane M M.D. Your Doctor is not in Healthy Skepticism About National Healthcare. Macon, GA: Crown Publishing, Inc., 1997. Rasell, E., M.D. PhD. “Universal Coverage: How Do We Pay For It?” Economic Policy Institute June 1998. Sultz, H, “Health Policy: If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Road Will Take You.” American Journal of Public Health 81 (1991) 4