Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
What are the basic characteristics that differentiate the U.S. health care delivery system from that of other countries
Critiques of our healthcare system
U.S. health care system in the last decade
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The United States healthcare system is often characterized as inefficient. This inefficiency becomes apparent when the U.S. healthcare system is compared to systems of other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. spends a much larger portion of its GDP on healthcare than any other OECD country, but experiences no better health outcomes in most cases. When the concept of efficiency within the healthcare market is understood, it is evident that the inefficiency that occurs within the U.S. healthcare system results largely from the structure of the private health insurance system in addition to the heterogeneity within the U.S. population.
To understand why the U.S. healthcare system is characterized as inefficient, it is first important to understand what is meant by efficiency, and what it means to be characterized as inefficient. When applied to the healthcare market, the concept of efficiency can be separated into two categories: productive and allocative efficiency. Productive efficiency relates the quantity and cost of inputs used in the healthcare market with the health outcomes in the market. For a market to be productively efficient, it means that the output attained is produced with the lowest possible cost (Garber and Skinner 28). This means that productive inefficiency is described as obtaining a certain level of output, but not in the least costly way. When comparing healthcare systems across countries, a system is inefficient compared to another if it obtains the same outcome by using more inputs or at a higher cost, or alternatively by using an equal number of inputs or cost but obtaining a lower output.
Allocative efficiency, on the other hand, is much different...
... middle of paper ...
...m caused by the private health insurance market is a large contributor to the inefficiency experienced in the U.S. healthcare system. The incentives created by private insurance for patients to overuse health services and for doctors to create extra demand for health services creates allocative inefficiency. The inefficiency also stems from productive inefficiency since the costs of healthcare are much greater in the U.S. than other OECD countries, but the outcomes of health are almost always worse in the U.S, which is a result of the heterogeneity of the U.S. population. Though it is not always easy to measure efficiency, these reasons help to explain why the U.S. healthcare system is inefficient.
Works Cited
Garber, Alan M., and Jonathan Skinner. “Is American Health Care Uniquely Inefficient?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 22.4 (2008): 27-50. Print.
According to Harry A. Sultz and Kristina M. Young, the authors of our textbook Health Care USA, medical care in the United States is a $2.5 Trillion industry (xvii). This industry is so large that “the U.S. health care system is the world’s eighth
spends about 15% of its gross domestic product on healthcare, thereby making it the largest sector of the economy” (Goldman, D., & McGlynn, E., 2005). “Americans are not healthier than some of the other developed nations, regardless of these extensive costs” (WHO, 2010). “Almost 40 million Americans are uninsured and about 18% of Americans under the age of 65 receive half of the recommended healthcare services” (Goldman, D., & McGlynn, E., 2005). “Though, quality of care was noted not to vary much in cities with respect to lack of insurance, poverty, penetration of managed care and availability of physicians and hospital beds” (Goldman, D., & McGlynn, E., 2005).
Many sources identify the Triple Aim as a derivation of the Iron Triangle’s evolution. The Iron Triangle addresses the ambiguous quality of services, the accessible nature of healthcare delivery, and the affordability of the care. In complete opposition, Triple Aim seeks to optimize performance by improving the patient experience, improving the health of a population, and reducing per capita health care costs. Furthermore, the Triple Aim framework supports the reduction of waste and increase in operational efficiency through the usage of integrators that oversee the three components. The topics addressed in each triangle’s vertices do not have a one-for-one correlation and hence further reveal the differentiation among the ideas. However, both the Iron Triangle and Triple Aim have continued to remain common knowledge among educators and healthcare policy makers and have contributed to health policy changes over the
6. The special characteristics of the U.S. health care market are Ethical and equity considerations, asymmetric information, spillover benefits, and third-party payments: insurance. Each one of these characteristics affects health care in some way. For example, ethical and equity considerations affect health care in the way that society does not consider unjust for people to be denied to health care access. Society believes that it is the same thing as not owning a car or a computer. Asymmetric information also gives health care a boost in prices. People who buy health care have no information on what procedures and diagnostics are involved, but on the other hand sellers do. This creates an unusual situation in which the doctor (seller) tells the patient(buyer) what services he or she should consume. It seems like the patient has to buy what the doctor tells him. The topic of spillover benefits also cause a rise in prices. This meaning that immunizations for diseases benefit not only the person who buys it but the whole community as well. It reduces the risk of the whole population getting infected. And the last characteristic is third-party insurance. Which involves all the insurance money people have to pay. This causes a distortion which results in excess consumption of health care services.
Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.
The American Health Care system has prided itself on providing high quality services to the citizens who normally cannot afford them. This system has been in place for years and until now it did a fairly decent job. The problem today is money; the cost of hospital services and doctor fees are rising faster than ever before. The government has been trying to come up with a new plan these past few years even though there has been strong opposition against a new Health Care system. There are many reasons why it should be changed and there are many reasons why it shouldn’t be changed. The main thing that both sides heads towards is money. Both sides want to save money just in different ways.
The United States is the largest developed nation in the world that does not guarantee health coverage for its citizens. Among the nations offering guaranteed healthcare coverage or single-payer systems are: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Japan, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France and Canada. Among these countries the average spending for healthcare is $4,500 per person while the United States on average spends $7,000 per person. In a 2007 study, when compared with 27 high-income democra...
The US health system has both considerable strengths and notable weaknesses. With a large and well-trained health workforce, access to a wide range of high-quality medical specialists as well as secondary and tertiary institutions, patient outcomes are among the best in the world. But the US also suffers from incomplete coverage of its population, and health expenditure levels per person far exceed all other countries. Poor measures on many objective and subjective indicators of quality and outcomes plague the US health care system. In addition, an unequal distribution of resources across the country and among different population groups results in poor access to care for many citizens. Efforts to provide comprehensive, national health insurance in the United States go back to the Great Depression, and nearly every president since Harry S. Truman has proposed some form of national health insurance.
The United States health care system is one of the most expensive systems in the world yet it is known as being unorganized and chaotic in comparison to other countries (Barton, 2010). This factor is attributed to numerous characteristics that define what the U.S. system is comprised of. Two of the major indications are imperfect market conditions and the demand for new technology (Barton, 2010). The health care system has been described as a free market in
The meaning of quality is “the right care for the right person at the right time”. Quality can be well-defined as the value, efficiency, consistency, and outcome of the care being provided. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service’s (CMS) stated “an rise in health care spending from $2.34 trillion in 2008 to $ 2.47 trillion in 2009, the largest one year increase since 1960” (Pickert, 2010). “The action to improve the American health care delivery system as a whole, in all of its quality dimensions such as efficiency, effectiveness, equitability, timeliness, patient-centeredness, and safety for all Americans” (IOM, 2011). This paper aims to find out the relationship between cost and quality relating to health care.
The cost of US health care has been steadily increasing for many years causing many Americans to face difficult choices between health care and other priorities in their lives. Health economists are bringing to light the tradeoffs which must be considered in every healthcare decision (Getzen, 2013, p. 427). Therefore, efforts must be made to incite change which constrains the cost of health care without creating adverse health consequences. As the medical field becomes more business oriented, there will be more of a shift in focus toward the costs and benefits, which will make medicine more like the rest of the economy (Getzen, 2013, p. 439).