The Problem of Rising Cost of Health Care in United States

Introduction

Health care in the United States remains different as compared to other developed nations. The United States takes a different direction by making a medical welfare system for the poor and the elderly and leaving the rest of the Health care system to supporting themselves. It spends approximately 35 billion per annum to provide medical care with uninsured residents. Another important fact is that around 41 million residents of United States, who lack health insurance, cost 130 billion per annum in lost productivity. This is causing a huge problem in the United States and changes can be made but it is up to the Government to make these changes.

Health care economics and the service delivery system present many challenges for the consumer and practitioner alike, despite the availability of exceptional medical care. It has an inefficient and expensive health care system, compared with other developed countries, with poor outcomes and many citizens who are denied access. Inefficiency is increased by the lack of an integrated system that could promote an optimal mix of personal medical care and population health measures. This paper advocates a health care system in which core medical benefits should be provided to every American irrespective of the work status and financial situation, while improving efficiency and reducing redundancy.

Description and Analysis

The prospect of health reform in the United States is a daily topic in the media, part news, and part conjecture. While the outcome of the current debate about moving closer to universal coverage is unknown, we do know we have been down this road before, many times. The United States has the most technologically intensive medical practice in the world. It also spends more than any other nation on medical care, but health outcomes in the United States are inferior to those in most other developed nations. This inefficiency, spending more with poorer results, stems partly from failure to provide effective access to medical care to a substantial share of the population. Lack of access leads to wider disparities in health in the United States than are experienced by the populations of other developed nations. The fragmented delivery system also leads to cost shifting (insurers' attempts to transfer costs to other payers), administrative waste, and an imbalance between spending on medical care and spending on population health initiatives (Cunningham, 1).

United States is the biggest, most diverse society on the earth, and their medical system also reflects that. They spend approximately two trillion dollar per year on health care; around one in every seven dollars in the economy, yet they are still one of the few nations where all citizens don't have medical coverage. Insurance of Health is an incentive mostly attached to the job of many Americans, or it comes as a result of the programs by government such as Medicaid and Medicare. It is ironical that America, a state that spends most money per capita on health care, and has the most advanced technology in ...