Reducing the Cost of Healthcare in United States

[Name of the Institute]



Background3

Problem Statement3

Literature Review4

A Healthier America4

Quality of HealthCare Services4

Status of the U.S. Healthcare System5

Problem Analysis7

Barack Obama's Proposal of the Reduction in HealthCare Cost7

How to Bring Down Cost of Healthcare?7

Solution and Its Implementation8

Availability of Healthcare Services8

Combining Public and Private Sector8

Reversing the Situation of Increasing Incidence of Chronic Diseases9

Introducing Risk-sharing Mechanism for Employees10

Controlling Obesity and Tobacco Consumption10

Promoting Healthy Diet and Healthy Habits11

Eliminate Economic Distortions11

Healthcare Spending12

Transparent and Standardized Care Based Pricing System12

Justification13

References14

Reducing the Cost of Healthcare in United States

Background

In the United States, many distinct organizations offer Health care facilities. Largely, the private sector business owns and operates health care facilities. In the United States, 62% of the hospitals are non-profit, 18% are profit generators, and 20% are owned by the government (Renne, Jenkins, Sanchez & Peterson, 2008). About 60-65% of the total of healthcare spending and provision is generated from programs including Veterans Health Administration, the Children's Health Insurance Program, TRICARE, Medicare, and Medicaid. Majority of the population is below 67 is insured by their employers of their family members, a few buy health insurance themselves, and the others are uninsured. Primarily, the government provides the health insurance for public employees (Renne, Jenkins, Sanchez & Peterson, 2008).

Problem Statement

American healthcare has changed dramatically in the last century. Since the 1900s, American life expectancy has been on a continuous increase. During the earlier periods of the 1900s the life expectancy was only 47 years of age (CDC, 2002). This shortened life was a result of disabilities and illnesses that are very much controlled in the current day and age. Most frequent causes of death in the earlier years of the 20th century included acute injuries, enteritis, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and pneumonia (CDC, 2002). Furthermore, the time span it took for an illness to lead to death during those days was also very short. People did not take years to die from their worsening medical conditions; rather it only took mere weeks for the calamity of death to occur, in serious medical cases.

The availability of healthcare facilitators and caregivers has also changed during the concerned century. Earlier family members mainly women such as daughters, wives and mothers used to take care of the ill. The suffering patients also died in their homes, being attended by the females in the house. Comparing this trend to today's healthcare provisioning it is very visible that the culture of care giving in the U.S. has changed drastically (USDHHS, 2000).

Literature Review

A Healthier America

The new millennium has overseen a healthier America. Americans are healthier and livelier going into their old ages. The average life expectancy of Americans has increased to 75 years. Improvements in medical treatments and provision of public health have led to fewer death calamities, most notably during infections and childbirth (CDC, 2002). Today, the biggest medical problems in the U.S. have changed to diabetes, injury, respiratory diseases, strokes, cancer, and heart disease. Older population mainly suffers multi-factorial frailty including Arthritis and Dementia. In the new world, an average ...