Term Papers on The American Health Care System

Term Paper Title	The American Health Care System
# of Words	2319
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	9.28

The American Health Care System

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 movement for changing the Health Care system believe that there is a need for change

because of the problems that the system faces today cannot be handled. Every month, 2 million

Americans lose their insurance .  One out of four, 63 million Americans, will lose their health

insurance coverage for some period during the next two years  .  37 million Americans have no

insurance and another 22 million have inadequate coverage  .  Losing or changing a job often

means losing insurance.  Becoming ill or living with a chronic medical condition can mean losing

insurance coverage or not being able to obtain it.  Long-term care coverage is inadequate.  Many

elderly and disabled Americans enter nursing homes and other institutions when they would prefer

to remain at home.  Families exhaust their savings trying to provide for disabled relatives.  Many

Americans in inner cities and rural areas do not have access to quality care, due to poor

distribution of doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics and support services.  Public health services are

not well integrated and coordinated with the personal care delivery system.  Many serious health

problems -- such as lead poisoning and drug-resistant tuberculosis -- are handled inefficiently or

not at all, and thus potentially threaten the health of the entire population.  Rising health costs

mean lower wages, higher prices for goods and services, and higher taxes.  The average worker

today would  be earning at least $1,000 more a year if health insurance costs had not risen faster

than wages over the previous 15 years .  If the cost of health care continues at the current pace,

wages will be held down by an additional $650 by the year 2000ii .  More and more Americans

have had to give up insurance altogether because the premiums have become prohibitively

expensive. Many small firms either cannot afford insurance at all in the current system, or have

had to cut  benefits or profits in order to provide insurance to their employees.

     Those problems are just with the system, the main part of the problem comes from the

insurance agencies. Quality care means promoting good health.  Yet, the  agencies waits until

people are sick before they starts to work.  The agencies are biased towards specialty care and

gives inadequate attention to cost-effective primary and preventive care.  Consumers cannot

compare doctors and hospitals because reliable quality information is not available to them.

Health care providers often don't have enough information on which treatments work best and are

most cost-effective.  Health care treatment patterns vary widely without detectable effects on

health status.  Some insurers now compete to insure the healthy and avoid the sick by determining

"insurability profiles" while they should compete on quality, value, and service.  The average

doctor's office spends 80 hours a month pushing paper.  Nurses often have to fill out as many as

19 forms to account for one person's hospital stay.  This is time that could be better spent caring

for patients. Insurance company red tape has created a nightmare for providers, with mountains of

forms and numerous levels of review that wastes money and d...

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