A health system encompasses numerous activities that work directly or indirectly in improving health outcomes in a population. From WHO 2000, a health system can be taken to mean “all activities and structures that impact or determine health in its broadest sense within a given society”. However, the scope is not usually well defined since it is not always clear on the extent to which the health system can be said to be liable for decreasing the prevalence of certain diseases or promoting healthy lifestyles in the entire population. In addition, the health system is not always in control if policies that influence health outcomes in a population. For instance, the health system is not usually in charge of tobacco and alcohol policies. This paper will be comparing the U.S. health system to Germany health system especially on health outcomes and the cost of achieving the same.
The health system of the United States is vast and encompasses a host of subsystems that have overlapping elements of public and private aspects. This system variously covers military personnel, older people, the employed, and the unemployed or at low income scale through Medicaid among other groups in the population (Shi & Singh2014). This health system is supplemented by privately funded subsystems that further medical coverage. The trends and variations in health outcomes of the given population such as morbidity and mortality are the core aspects used to determine and explain the success or failure of a health system (WHO 2000. In the United States, there has been a continued decrease in mortality and morbidity rates as per their medical records. This can be attributed to the numerous campaigns done targeting diseases and infections of public health concern (Shi & Singh2014). There has also been extensive research in developing drugs that ameliorate the effects of incurable diseases such as cancers and also lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.
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The average stay of patients in hospitals is also low where it is four to five days. As a result, there has been a sustained trend of reduction of the mortality and morbidity rates in the population and consequently, the life expectancy has improved. The heath system of the United States has also managed to control the morbidity and mortality of vulnerable population groups such as infants and young children as well as pregnant women. Currently, these have been at the lowest levels which indicate a successful health system. Due to this fall, efforts to add disability to the equation have been put in place through measures such as health adjusted life expectancy to bring out the bigger picture of the health situation (Shi & Singh2014). Notably, this measure establishes the relationship between the population and the inputs of the health system. The United States has one of the lowest rates of disability, mortality and morbidity which indicate that the health gap is closing in on reducing adverse health outcomes. Although the United States has achieved adequate health outcomes, the investments have been very high that is, over eight thousand dollars per person while the leading country uses three thousand dollars. Generally, the expenditure was nearly sixteen percent of the national gross product (Mossialos et al., 2015).
On the other hand, the health system in Germany has comparatively lower costs that are slightly above four thousand dollars per person. This can be attributed to the structure of funding where everyone is required to have insurance. Germany has sixteen provinces that are served by one healthcare system. The mechanisms of the system have been enhanced to the extent that everyone in the country is guaranteed of health care. The system has ensured that virtually everyone has access to healthcare through enactment of laws that make it mandatory for every individual to have health insurance (Koch et al., 2011). Individuals who earn significantly lower amounts of money are required to join a different insurance platform knows as the sickness fund that caters for health coverage. In fact, there are over five hundred sickness funds in different localities. The staff in charge of these sickness fund projects actually negotiates the rates of payment based on the outcome of their negotiations with individual hospitals. Moreover, these regional sickness funds groups engage the doctors and dentists associations to ensure that ambulatory and dental care services are affordable to their clients. In assessment of health outcomes, the approach is on checking the rates of morbidity, mortality and disability. Notably, Germany records one of the lowest rates of infant mortality due to the high ratio of health care providers to the population (Koch et al., 2011). In life expectancy, Germany has one of the highest rates, that is, seventy eight years for men while women have over eighty years of life expectancy (WHO 2000). This is indicative of the ability of its health system in preventing and curing diseases and infections, both infectious and non-communicable. The average stay of patients in hospitals is also low where it is nine days. The entire expenditure on the health system is eleven percent of the gross domestic product (Mossialos et al., 2015).
In conclusion, both Germany and the US show significant similarities in achieving health outcomes. However, from an overview of the current and recent changes in their modes of operation, some differences also crop up. The major difference is on the impact of the healthcare system on the gross domestic product where Germany has significantly lower percentages as compared to the US.
References
Koch, K., Miksch, A., Schürmann, C., Joos, S., & Sawicki, P. T. (2011). The German health care system in international comparison. Dtsch Ärztebl, 108(15), 255-261.
Mossialos, E., Wenzl, M., Osborn, R., & Anderson, C. (2015). 2015 International Profiles of Health Care Systems.
Shi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2014). Delivering health care in America . Jones & Bartlett Learning.
World Health Organization. (2000). The world health report 2000: health systems: improving performance. World Health Organization.
