Healthcare in the United States – Term Paper

RQ1. Does the United States spend more on healthcare compared to other developed countries globally?

RQ3: How has the health care service and provisions changed the nature of health of the US citizens

Purpose statement

Research has shown that the United States is the leading spender in healthcare. More precisely, the nation spends $9,084 per capita on health compared to other countries that pay between $3 to $6 on the same. For example, countries such as Canada, UK, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and Denmark spend an average of 4,569, 3,364, 3,855, 4,115, 4,920, and 4,847 in that order. Further studies indicate that the nation spends much on healthcare issues such as the use of modern technology to improve the provision of better health services. The high spending is not about the frequent hospital visits made by citizens or the extra amounts of money that the government incurs in taking care of the less privileged and poor citizens of the nation. The country also uses more funds to ensure that the hospitals get enough medications and other equipment for providing better health services.

Healthcare is one aspect that many leaders, as well as citizens in the United States, give greater importance since it directly affects their lives. Research has shown that many people in the country lacked adequate economic resources to pay for health services. The hardships encountered in accessing healthcare were more notable among the poor in the nation than among the reach and those who could afford to pay for health insurance. The situation slightly improved after the adoption of the Affordable Healthcare Act that aimed to increase ease of access to many poor people across the nation. However, despite the fact that the US spends more on healthcare, further studies indicate this has not had major positive impacts on the health statuses of the citizens. The people still surfer from many incurable and health-threatening diseases. They also experience myriad health problems that should not occur in a nation that spends more on healthcare. Similarly, the life expectancy of the citizens has dropped instead of rising based on high government expenditure on health services.

Therefore, adequate health care coverage should help the citizens to access effective healthcare benefits without incurring more finances. Instead of spending extremely on medical technology and advancement, the government should be able to balance their spending by ensuring that they cover those with low income in the Affordable Healthcare Act. They also need to make sure that all the health professionals get better compensations to avoid issues such as strikes within the system. Similarly, effective health coverage should lead to factors such as better training for health practitioners. The nation needs to provide resources for training health experts to provide services not only within health institutions but also at homes. On the same note, healthcare services should be able to improve value among the US systems. The main aim of effective health services is to ensure that the citizens do not suffer major health issues. As such, the government needs to make sure that they support different advances in health service provision to deal with intermittent diseases. For example, professionals need to perform through medical research to come up with drugs and vaccines that can prolong the lives of people suffering from such diseases. The ability to provide better health services will add value to the lives of the citizens and hence increase their life expectancies.