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Challenges and Solutions in the U.S. Health Care System: Evaluating Costs, Access, and Equity

A research assignment evaluating key challenges and solutions in the U.S. healthcare system, focusing on costs and access.

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    Challenges and Solutions in the U.S. Health Care System: Evaluating Costs, Access, and Equity Health Care System in Turmoil Discuss why the current health care system is in turmoil. Identify two major problems of health care and analyze the impact of each of the chosen problems on consumers and the community. Describe the benefits and risks of national health insurance. Introduction There is minimal argument the American healthcare system, as it now operates, does not adequately provide quality care for Americans. In addition, the system falls short in providing universal care for its citizens. The American system is two - tiered, with the government providing care for a population based on income and age while other citizens pay for care through privately managed, premium care insurance providers. Although different in concept and practice, both are plagued by the same prob lems which include inadequate treatment for patients, diminishing quality of patient care, rising costs, inefficient management, and inadequate pay for medical professionals. Discussion The costly American health care system, allegedly, has overpromised and underperformed, and, as such, a reduction in public and private funding for research and physician compensation seems, to some, justified. This perspective, the focus of intense political debate, has been erroneously advanced citing the US's poor WHO (Wo rld Health Organization) mortality rankings and that higher ranking countries spend considerably less per capita for health care. This mistaken allegation, by aligning flawed WHO mortality statistics and country rankings, and per capita country health care expenditures, should be seen as prima facie evidence of American health care inferiority and incompetence, and, by inference, poor physician performance. These unfortunate statements, pegged to blemished data and invalid comparisons, have only fomented co nfusion, tension, turmoil, and angst

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    among Americans toward health care providers, and have diverted focus and energy away from the crucial issues necessary to be addressed in the attainment of improved health care delivery. Our health care system is unstable because, our national economy and environment themselves are unsettled because of the constant rise in unemployment and ongoing political tug of war. Our health system is broken because we continue to spend more on health care, than any other nation. Point two ------------ Insurance companies are middlemen between the hospital and or your doctor and you. They od nothing but try to make yo pay the most for the least amount of service so they can take a big cut of the cost as profit. Also, in this country as opposed to most developed countries and some not so developed counmtries, profit has become our number one motive. Therefore a doctor and/or a hospital might want to help people, but they also wnat to make big money. If you need a heart operation in order to live, they can charge whatever they want thinking you will pay it. In Europe and Cuba, Venizala and more countries, their thinking is that good health is the job of all citizens to each other. Therefore in England if you need a heart operation, or in Canada you have a serious disease, or in Germany you suffer a bad accident, or in Norway you are going to have a baby, or in Cuba if you're loosing your eyesight, your doctor recommends the proper treatment and you have it and go about your life without the crushing debt. The insurance companies, who profit from your illness, spend millions trying to convince you that an insurance run capitalistic health care system is in your best interest when it clearly is in their best interest, Analyze --------------------- Abstract

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    There is a significant gap between the quality of care the US health care system is capable of achieving and the quality of care it currently delivers. Rather than being the consequence of individual providers' actions or inadequacies, gaps in the quality of care are largely due to the failure of health care organizations to incorporate known improvement measures into the process of care. The 2001 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century ( 1 ) asserts that the health care safety and quality problems exist because of limited infrastructure and outmoded care systems, which result in a cycle of suboptimal care being repeated throughout the many levels of care. Crossing the Quality Chasm also issued a challenge for health care system improvement in recommending that all health care organizations, as well as professional groups and purchasers of health care, pursue six major aims of health care:  Safety: avoid injuries to patients from care that is intended to help them.  Timeliness: reduce waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive care and those who give care.  Effectiveness: provide services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refrain from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoid underuse and overuse, respectively).  Efficiency: avoid waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.  Equity: provide care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status (SES).  Patient - centeredness: provide care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values, ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions ( 1 ). Substantial improvements are achievable in all six dimensions of health care quality. The aim of equity is to ensure quality care benefits for all, based on

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