The Future of Health Care Delivery in the US - Essay Example

One of the most significant issues affecting the future of health care delivery in the United s is health insurance coverage. According to the National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC) report Facts on Health Insurance Coverage, “The number of excess deaths among uninsured adults age 25-64 is in the range of 22,000 a year. This mortality figure is more than the number of deaths from diabetes (17,500) within the same age group” (http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml). The high cost of premiums is forcing employers to either reduce health care benefits or require employees to pay a greater part of the premiums.

Employees, for the most part, can’t afford these extra costs. As a result, many Americans don’t have or are losing health insurance coverage, and we have a nation that is getting poor access to health care. When we examine current health statistics, we can predict that this loss in coverage will affect our population strongly as time goes by. As a member of a minority group in the United States, I have personally faced many of the effects of not having access to health care. This issue leads a community to major disadvantages such as higher vulnerability to acute and chronic diseases, inability to purchase expensive prescriptions, lack of knowledge or preventive care, and many more disadvantages.

In fact, when I was part of the End of Life Research project, I had the opportunity to experience direct interaction with patients, who talked about how a terminal disease and the treatment had a great monetary impact in their lives. For some, it was devastating to not have the means to keep on top of their prescriptions, since not all of them were insured. My experience with the Bridges to Dominican Republic project also taught me a lot about how lack of health insurance affects not just America but most countries.

As a volunteer for this community service program, one of my duties was to give out medicine to people who had many illnesses and were not able to get any medical treatment. Seeing so much need and so many hopeless faces can only allow one to think about what we should do to help with this cause—and how essential it is to improve the health care delivery system. While it can be easy to point the finger at one factor or institution for this issue, it is clear that the future of quality health care delivery depends on the commitment of all parties involved to provide at least a minimum standard of care.

Whether the government decides to reform the health care system or not, I certainly think that citizens, doctors, and professionals (including myself) should start the change. I envision myself raising an association that can provide counseling, annual checkups and conferences on preventive care for all ages; an association where professionals can volunteer their time, knowledge and skills to give care to those who need it and change the future of our health care system. Statistics tell us that the uninsured suffer from greater mortality than those with adequate access to health care services.

As more and more people lose their health care coverage or are forced to adjust their tightened budgets to accommodate higher premium costs, the situation will only worsen. From my personal experiences and from what I will learn in my future career, I can see that reforming the health care delivery system in the United States is absolutely necessary in order to deliver quality, affordable care to all Americans.