Term Paper Categories
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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...Read entire document
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