A universal health care system has been a controversial topic in the United States. Therefore, many issues have been considered prevalent in the US health care system and among them are expenditures and its accessibility. The United States has the high gross domestic product compared to the other developed nations. Due to the larger per capita income, it spends a lot on the health care. The irony of this is also evident in the healthcare system. Despite being the nation with the highest gross domestic product, its healthcare has not been pleasant. It is considered to be among the nations which have poor quality healthcare when compared to the other industrialized nations. This paper will address the discrepancies between US and the other developed countries regarding accessibility and expenditure in the healthcare sector
Comparison of Universal Health Care of US and other Developed Countries
Universal health care is defined as the provision of quality healthcare that is adequately distributed through funding, efficient, fairly financed, accessible, and appropriately used by the empowered and informed public. All developed Nations such as Australia, Canada, and Europe have universal health care. However, United States is ranked among the industrialized countries but does not have a universal healthcare (Kane, 2016). The industrialized nations have universal healthcare because they consider it a right to every citizen to have affordable medication. Every citizen has the right to live this means that every citizen should enjoy the quality of life in any possible way. Universal healthcare is critical to that right because many citizens succumb because of not accessing the quality health care when need be, especially in the United States. Further, the developed nations have universal healthcare because the leadership in developed nations support the program on the other hand citizens are required to pay more inform of taxes so that they can support the universal health care programme. This is not the case with the United States. The United States is a nation that has a high gross domestic product as compared to the other developed nations. It is known be among the countries that spend a lot of its GDP on universal health care yet has low-quality care than the majority of the western nations. The biggest problem that prevails the United States is that its political sphere is usually opposed a public service that is taxpayer-funded (Kane, 2016). Countries that have that kind of funding service such as Australia and the United Kingdom have enjoyed the benefits of universal healthcare. Thus, the majority of the people claim that universal healthcare is undesirable and hence opposed by the majority. Universal health care is not seen as a right of every citizen. Reforms in the United States usually face a lot of opposition before being adopted. The majority of the Americans have been misled to think that with universal healthcare the rich pay for the less fortunate which it is not the case.
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Comparison of Medical Costs of US and other Developed Nations
When one compares United States with the other developed countries, it is evident that the costs are different. Most of the developed nations have made medication affordable for their citizens; in comparison with the US citizen in other developed nations pay half of what one would pay while seeking same services in the US. Despite the US spending a lot on health care, the citizens do not get value for their money this is due to high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy. In most of the developed countries, the government is the one responsible for financing the health care budgets (Kane, 2016). On the contrary, in the United States many health sectors are privatized meaning that the individuals have to pay for their healthcare or depend on insurance companies. However, only fifteen percent of the US population is covered by the health insurance; therefore, it means that majority of the population do not have sufficient access to medical care. Furthermore, the cost of medication is not expected to go down any soon this is because United States lacks proper methods of controlling the high costs in private healthcare sectors and as a result, its medical expenses will remain higher compared to that of developed nations. Cheap medical expenditures in the developed nations have been contributed by automating the healthcare thus cutting down on the operation costs (Kane, 2016). Finally, apart from the United States, other developed nations have affordable physicians; therefore, the cost of operation is low hence the reason for them to spend half as much in medical costs compared to the US. In the United States the cost of operation is high because of the high demand of the few medical practitioners, as a result, they charge very expensive hence translating to high costs and increase in deaths and infant mortality to those who cannot afford the medication.
Infant Mortality and Longevity Statistics
Infant mortality is the numbers infant deaths in a year or per every a thousand live births. Infant mortality has been associated with the developing countries. However, United States is a developed nation that records high mortality rates in a year. Developed countries have superior longevity statistics and infant mortality because the rarely have economic, racial, and ethnic disparities that are evident in the United States. These variations account for high child mortality rates low life expectancy. For instance, 2005, many African-American babies registered a death rate of 13.63 per a thousand live births (Friedman, 2012). Due to the racial, economic, and ethnic disparities, the affected groups tend to have a low life expectancy and low longevity.
Conclusion
The United States should learn why the other developed nations surpass them in the provision of universal healthcare system. It should consider adopting the universal healthcare which will be accessible to all its citizens. One way of achieving this is through the government intervention in the healthcare. Just like other nations, US should ensure that it has many public health sectors for the purpose of the individuals who cannot afford to pay for the private healthcare (Friedman, 2012). Moreover, they should view universal healthcare as a right of every citizen. The political parties in the United States should also support the provision of universal healthcare. Finally, the nation should get rid of racial, ethnic, and economic disparities. These recommendations can help in improving the US healthcare system.
References
Friedman, H. (2012). The Huffington Post Retrieved 10 August 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-do-other-rich-nations-spend-so-much-less-on-healthcare/374576/
Kane, J. (2016). Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries . PBS News Hour . Retrieved 10 August 2016, from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/
