Healthcare Policy

Healthcare Policy

Introduction

When set against the sheer size of the economy of the United States, the nation's annual spending on health care is much higher than even the most well developed nations of the world. Back in the year 1997, the latest year for which statistical data on health trends is available, the United States spent in excess of a staggering $1.1 trillion on health which constitutes around 13.5 percent of the nation's overall GDP (Forman, 2010).

In contrast, the health care spending of nations like Switzerland, France and Germany is around 10 percent of their GDP and this emphasizes the fact that healthcare spending of the United States far exceeds the health spending of any other nation in the world. Having looked at the impressive level of government spending on healthcare, it is quite unsurprising that mortality rates have declined significantly in the past few years.

However, in spite of such impressive spending, there is a fundamental issue with the US healthcare policy. Over the years, experts on healthcare policies have emphasized that the Americans' needs for healthcare are not being met comprehensively and uniformly. For example, even today there are nearly 50 million Americans who do not have access to proper and comprehensive health insurance (Halvorson, 2007).

Back in the year 1997, more than 16 percent of all Americans were deprived of basic health insurance. This was a serious issue and starkly contrasted the overall spending of the government on the healthcare sector. To add to the woes of Americans, the situation has only worsened since that time as almost 18 percent of Americans lack health insurance today. Issues like public health initiatives, health-related research, health insurance coverage, and federal policies and programs on healthcare such as Medicare and Medicaid are the main subject of this paper.

Background

With the passage of time, the healthcare needs of a person inevitably increase regardless of the country they reside in. However, the circumstances under which these needs are fulfilled and the policies that define precisely how the delivery of healthcare services to the general public will be ensured varies from country to country and, especially in the case of the United States, from state to state. Even in the presence of comprehensive healthcare policies, the healthcare needs of nearly 50 million American citizens are unmet to a great extent (Williams, 2011).

In the 21st century alone, there have been many attempts on the part of the government to radically reform the US healthcare system in order to provide an increase in its efficiency in terms of delivering a wide range of healthcare services to those Americans who are in dire need of them. There have been number of social, economic, ethical, legal and political factors that have been primarily responsible for the decline in the quality of the US healthcare sector (Williams, 2011). All these issues combined have led to a critical rise in the healthcare problems that America as a nation faces at the current moment.

The issue of Healthcare was a priority during the elections of ...