Health Policy and Health Care Reform - Essay Example

College: May 4 US Healthcare US healthcare has been known to be expensive and does not cover the whole population. The main problem with the system is the fact that it has proven hard to be reformed by the introduction. Many people who have tried to resolve this issue assume that a system that works in another country can also be used in the US, and others still try to implement small changes forgetting that US citizens have different health challenges and require a system that works for them. Thus, taking a system that works in another country and trying to implement it in US is a total ignorance of the Americans fundamental political, legal and social realities. Most of the proposed reforms of the US healthcare bill focus on ideologies and financing wider coverage. However, through comparison with countries like Canada and UK which have better functioning healthcare systems US can learn efficient means of implementing an effective healthcare system. This research aims at examining the areas that US healthcare goes wrong in comparison to countries like Canada and the UK that have successful health care systems. One crucial problem is the fact that a great percentage of American population is not covered with insurance, and there is the issue of inequitable and inefficient incentives for the provision and purchase of insurance. Moreover, there are problems when it comes to what should be covered and what should not if universal healthcare insurance coverage is initiated. Moreover, there are also hindrances in terms of healthcare costs and administrative complexities that many people feel they are expensive and exhausting. The issue of low quality health care services offered, and the fact that most patients feel that their preferences are not adequately responded has been an outcry of American citizens for a long time (Luft, 8). US is one of the few industrialized countries that do not offer healthcare system that is universal as well as publicly funded, and this has been a major problem between the government and activists. It has also been pointed out that US spend an immense percentage of its capital income in health care compared to other nations, yet it does not cover an enormous part of its population, considering that most Americans are said to end up bankrupt because of health expenses. Compared to US, Canada has healthcare that reaches wider coverage, it is known as single-payer system. The main difference between this system and America’s is how Canada healthcare is funded. Unlike US, where citizens pay their medical expenses through insurance, Canada pays for its citizens (Jime?nez-Rubio, 380). They manage to do this by collecting taxes, going through negotiations with health care providers, and as a result, coming into an agreement on charges and then disbursing the amount centrally. Moreover, patients are not charged for essential health care, and only a small fee is charged for some few pharmaceuticals. Just like in the US hospitals, there are either public or privately owned, and people have a choice, to purchase private insurance, however, the larger population utilizes the public system. Unlike in the US where an immense part of the population would like reforms on heath care system, only a few would like reforms in Canadian health care system, implying that the Canadian system is effective. Physicians in Canada receive their payments from a central source, and do not have to follow a long process of whether their patients have insurance coverage like in US. In addition, Canadian hospitals do not have to deal with issues that accompany treating a patient covered by a certain insurance company, which means that they do not have to file claims like Americans do in order to receive healthcare services. The main reason why Americans prefer to be covered privately on their medical expenses is frustrations they experience with Medicaid and Medicare (Roehr, 1). Most people registered under Medicare find the process of reimbursement complicated, and time consuming, such that they give up and lose their benefits. Normally Americans wait for over two months for reimbursement while Canadians receive their benefits in a month. This is because of how simple Canadian system is with no bureaucratic procedures involved, and the administrative fee is almost negligible since the ratio of US administrative fee to Canada is six is to one. Canadas system has many advantages over America’s system; one key advantage is the amount of money in relation to Canadian citizens gross salary spent on health care is low compared to US citizens who even go bankrupt. Moreover, Canadas coverage is universal meaning that all citizens are guaranteed of their health cost being taken care of by the government. This is unlike in the US where people pay their own health insurance apart from people of poverty level, and those who have reached the age of 65 and above. Additionally, life expectancy is higher in Canada compared to US, and this can be explained by the fact that people live longer, since their health issues are taken care of by the government. However, there are challenges facing Canada as well one huge challenge is the fact that they have fewer doctors and machines required for scanning as well as MRIs. In addition, they have long waited procedures to be carried out as well as higher mortality rate of infants compared to US (Jost, 435). On the other hand, UK has a unique healthcare system known as National Health Service (NHS). This system considers most providers of health care as government employees and the government pays them from revenues collected as tax. The system is similar to Canadian in that most necessary health care is, free though, in some cases, people pay a small prescription fee. This does not apply to the old, students and unemployed since their fee is waived. In Wales drugs are given free as far as they are approved. People have the option of covering their medical expenses through insurance; there are also employers who pay insurance premiums/coverage for their employees, although the majority of the UK population utilizes NHS (Jost, 435). In addition, the main advantage of this system in UK the fact that, it covers everyone meaning that people do not have to be stressed over how to pay their healthcare coverage. They also spend less than what US use as per capita income. Moreover, their infant mortality is lower compared to both US and Canada. However, they have lesser MRIs, doctors and scanners per population compared to Canada (Jost, 435). Thus, financing healthcare from revenues collected from taxes seems to reinforce constraints on inflation in healthcare. Governments that pay for health care services for their citizens are able to handle health costs due to their dependence on tax revenues, which are readily available. However, there is much more that needs to be done apart from constraining taxes, budgeting power and negotiating. This is because there must be a political will to change the healthcare system in US. In Canada, there were cases of budget overruns in the early years, but they have been able to get over this problem by making sure any person or doctor who failed to obey the rules would end up losing his position. This implies that there is also need to come up with stringent rules and penalties to curb defaulters and ensure compliance. Health economists in America have for a long time advised that it is necessary for patients to pay a small portion of their medical bills, so that cost containment can be encouraged. A patient paying a small part of the medical charges makes him or her conscious on how he or she uses medical care, and takes care of his/her body or health. However, from experiences of UK and Canada it is clear that cost sharing should not be significant to control medical inflation (Marmor, 1). It is also clear that the government should monitor health system to ensure that all people access health care as well, as making sure that there is no medical inflation. Works Cited Luft, H S. "What Works and What Doesn't Work Well in the Us Healthcare System." Pharmacoeconomics. 24 (2006): 15-28. Print. Jime?nez-Rubio, D, PC Smith, and Doorslaer E. Van. "Equity in Health and Health Care in a Decentralised Context: Evidence from Canada." Health Economics. 17.3 (2008): 377-92. Print. Marmor, Theodore R, and Jenny L. Mashaw. "Canada's Health Insurance and Ours: The Real Lessons, the Big Choices." American Prospect. (1990). Print. Jost, Timothy S. "Why Can't We Do What They Do?: National Health Reform Abroad." Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 32.3 (2004). Print. Roehr, B. "Obama's Top Priority How Will the Us Reduce Costs While Expanding Healthcare Coverage for All?" British Medical Journal. (2009): 1356-1358. Print. Read More