Limited Access
This is a major issue given that a substantial proportion of the population
is still not able to have the financial access to the system. Barton (2009,
p.4) estimate this proportion to be as much as 20%. It appears that only a
small proportion of the population accounts for up to 80% of the entire
healthcare expenditure (Barton, 2009, p.4). Access to healthcare was indeed a
serious issue for the new Obama administration who sought to ensure that the 47
million people currently lacking health insurance get one(Barton,2009,p.3). It
is a quest that remains to be achieved.
Expanding Costs
The United States stands out among industrial nations as having the
largest expenditure in healthcare. This figure stood at $ 7,421 in 2007 in per
capita terms. Cost was also one of the areas in which the Obama administration
sought to reform. The entire U.S healthcare system was reportedly valued at $
2.2 trillion by the time of publication (Barton, 2009, p.11). An expanding cost
would not have been much of an issue had there been a corresponding expansion
in accessibility. This is, however, not the case and one may conclude that the
system must be wasting some of the money. Whatever the case, there has been a
realization that this cost must be controlled (Barton, 2009, p.4).
Pressures on quality
Closely related to the first two issues is the aspect of quality. The
U.S healthcare system is part public and part private with the role of the
government having increased in the recent past through programs such as
Medicare and Medicaid. This has had the implication of an expansion in the
number of those accessing healthcare and with it the need to control the cost
of maintaining such access. This kind of interaction has eventually aroused
quality concerns. For instance, insurance companies may engage in fraud as they
try to limit payments to care providers (Barton, 2009). In all these, people of
lower socio-economic status are the ones most affected (Hawkins, Jhund,
McMurray&Capewell, 2012).
References
Barton, P.L. (2009).Understanding the U.S Health Services System, Fourth Edition. New
York: Health Administration Press.
Hawkins,N.M.,Jhund,P.S.,McMurray,J.J.V.,Capewell,S.(2012).Heart
Failure and Socioeconomic Status:
Accumulating Evidence of Inequality. European
Journal of Heart Failure, 14,138-146.
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