The Importance Of Health Care

Health care should be a basic human right. The human right to health care means that hospitals, clinics, medicines, and doctors services must be accessible, available, acceptable, and of good quality for everyone, where and when needed. The design of the health care system is guided by specific human rights standards. The first is Universal Access. Access to health care must be universal, guaranteed for all, and physically accessible when and where needed. Second is Availability. There was must be adequate health care infrastructure, including hospitals and well trained professionals, as well as locations in all geographic areas and to all communities. Third is Acceptability and Dignity. Health care institutions must provide respect, culturally …show more content…

In 2014, 836 million government dollars were spent on health care. This equated to 24 percent of the total federal government budget (“Policy Basics,” 2015). With the induction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, Americans who could not normally afford health care were finally going to be able to afford the coverage they needed, but that was not true. The ACA’s mandate to buy health insurance does not reach everyone because many uninsured individuals do not want to get involved with the expensive and complex insurance system. While the ACA does close some of the gap in the insurance market, it fails to create access for people that never budgeted for insurance (Romano, 2014). For those that can not afford health care and feel they do not need it, no need to worry. In 2016, the government will only fine you $695 per adult and $347.50 per child under 18 for not having insurance (“Individual Mandate,” n.d.). The ACA will insure millions, but it will also leave tens of millions of Americans still uninsured (Romano, 2014). The administrative costs in the U.S. health care system are the highest in the world. These administrative costs do not pay for improved patient care; they pay for more administrators. These additional administrators perform a function not needed in other countries; their main purpose is to restrict access to health care and limit the benefits of patients who do gain …show more content…

hasn’t brought its citizens free health care yet, but other countries have. Compared to the other 33 countries part of The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. spending on health care is more than two-and-a-half-times more than most of them including the richer nations like France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The average spending per person for these 33 countries was $3,268 per person, and the U.S. sits at $8,233 per person. A hospital stay in the United States costs over $18,000 on average. The countries that come closest to spending that much are Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan, which all spend between $4,000 and $6,000 less per stay. Procedures like coronary bypasses however cost nearly 50 percent more in Canada, Australia, and France. In other countries with universal healthcare, a common fees schedule is used so that hospitals, doctors, and health services are paid relatively the same rates for most of the patients they see. U.S. payment rates cannot change without approval by Congress. In the U.S. however, how much a care service gets depends on the kind of insurance the patient has, if any at all. With such a system, health care services can choose patients who have more generous paying insurance policies over those who have lower-paying insurers, such as Medicaid (Kane, 2012). Patients in the U.S. have faster access to specialized health care, but they are less likely to report rapid access to care than leading