The United States has one of the most expensive healthcare in the world. The government has been trying to come up with different strategies to cut the amount that is spent on healthcare. I think that the best strategy to lower the cost without interfering with the quality of healthcare in the country is through legislation. Previous legislation formulated to reduce the budget on healthcare worked although not as effectively as needed. Better legislation can, however, be formulated to deal with the situation. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 led to a significant reduction of the national budget with the Medicare cuts being responsible for over one hundred and twelve million (American Hospital Association, 2000). The act reduced such a significant amount of Medicare spending by cutting the amounts paid to doctors, nurses, hospitals and other healthcare providers. The 2003 Medicare Modernization act also produced a large overhaul by introducing tax breaks and subsidies for prescription drugs. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 made it possible for more Americans to secure medical covers.
Legislation has worked before and can still work better in cutting down what Americans spend on healthcare. High prices are responsible for America’s healthcare, which is expensive as it is (Hyman, 2018). The cost of healthcare labor, equipment, and drugs are quite high making the general healthcare services very costly. The amount America spends on healthcare institutions, administration as well as on pharmaceuticals is way too high compared to that spent by other countries that are as developed as the United States. Surprisingly, such countries, such as China, still have good quality healthcare. This is to mean that lowering such prices will not necessarily lead to the decline in the quality of America’s healthcare. The American government should, therefore, formulate legislation that leads to the reduction of such costs.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The United States seems to overly rely on open-ended third-party payment resulting in funneling of money from the rest of the economy and directing it to healthcare funding. To avoid such situations, the policymakers need to come up with legislation that encourages market entry by providers who can provide low-cost services. The policymakers also need to minimize mandated benefits, make as many drugs as possible to be accessible over the counter instead of being prescription only, as well come up with requirements of more transparency on pricing criteria as well as quality information by both manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and healthcare providers. There is also a need for laws that ensure strict payment neutrality irrespective of the site where care is delivered (Sylver & Hyman, 2018). This is because some healthcare providers especially those in the private sector take advantage of patients’ situations and overcharge them.
America also needs to cut its healthcare cost by reducing the rate at which it imports equipment and drugs from countries such as China, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, and India. The United States is one of the greatest drug importers in the whole world. This high rate of importation is a key cause of the high costs of drugs and other healthcare equipment. The legislators in the United States, therefore, need to come up with policies that encourage the establishment of industries to manufacture drugs and healthcare equipment within the United States. The US imports its drugs not on a cost-effective basis but rather on a research-oriented one. This means that the drug importation is not anywhere near cheap. Indeed, the United States is a county that is endowed with lots of talents and brains. If the government supports medical researches and even formulates policies that invite more brains into the country, the country can have the research-oriented drugs produced right here in America instead of having to import them. That way, the drugs can be available to Americans at much lower prices compared to the tariff-imposed prices that come with the imported products.
Prices on drugs, healthcare services, and equipment are the principal causes of costly medical care in the United States and legislation is the best way to deal with those prices. This is because lawmakers can formulate policies to control such prices. The legislators can initiate competitive bidding for Medicare advantage. They can also initiate the use of prizes instead of patents in the encouragement of innovation in the medical fields. The legislator also needs to formulate policies that will increase competition in the generic drugs market. This can be done through increasing antitrust enforcement, prioritizing the review on generic drugs that have had their price hiked, preventing the Food and Administration agency from slowing generic entry, as well relaxing the agencies grip on market entry through any other possible ways. The legislation strategy is the best way to get America out of the problem of expensive healthcare that it has been trapped in for the longest time. This is because legislators have the power that is not in the hands of many other people. They are the lawmakers and the law is what the country runs by.
References
American Hospital Association. (2000). The impact of the BBA and the BBRA. Trend Watch Retrieved from. www.aha.org/aha/trendwatch/2000/twmarch2000.pdf .
Hyman, D. A. (2018). How to reduce health care costs: Understanding the cost of health care in America.
Sylver, C., Hyman, D. (2018). Overcharged: Why Americans are paying too much for health care. Washington DC: Cato Institute.
