Health Economics: International Comparison - Essay Example

However, an international comparison conducted between India’s health care system and the U.S health care system, shows a significant difference between the two in terms of services and financing delivery. The U.S health system therefore, emerges to be the perfect (Brijesh, 2012). To acquire a better understanding of India’s health care system, a comparison can be conducted with a more familiar system known as the United States. U.S health care system is offered by many different organizations.

Its health care facilities are owned and operated by individual sector businesses. This system is different from that of India because the health care system of India is provided and run by the constituent territories and states of the country. However, there are a number of comparisons between the two systems based on a few criteria that relate to services and financing delivery. In terms of services, United State health care system seems to be extremely poor especially when booking for appointment with doctors.

For instance, a patient consulting a primary care physician about a back pain can be directed to a specialist doctor. This specialist may seem reluctant to treat the patient and end up delaying for a long time before getting to the patient. However, such cases do not happen in India because doctors treat people more like human beings (Brijesh, 2009). In India the total expenditure percentage of GDP spent by the government on health care system, is as low as four to five percent. In United State, the expenditure is significantly beyond the world standards where it stands as high as 16.

2 percent of GDP, leading to it being ranked on 37th position in the world by The World Health Organization (“Five key differences,” 2011). This indicates that, the increased per capita expenditure on health care, results to better services being offered to citizens hence improving their well being. On the other hand, the global health care profile of The World Health Organization, ranked India’s health care system at position 112, which is way below countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that hold position 88 and 76 respectively.

Failure to support Health care due to low GDP in India, results to poor guest care in hospitals. Nurses behave very rude to patient and visitors because they receive extremely low salaries and are highly understaffed. Therefore, they take their frustrations out on patients visiting the hospitals. When comparing India’s system with that of United State, such cases do not happen because nurses and other hospital staff are so caring and ensures that every patient and visitors are comfortable. India’s health care system, viewed as a mixed system, consist of a government health infrastructure that funds all health centers.

The aim of the infrastructure is to provide health care services at tertiary, second and primary level. In addition, there is a private health care infrastructure which has emerged with a lot of potential growth declining peoples’ trust on public hospitals. In United State, the health care system is usually privately funded. The employers are charged with the responsibility of offering financial support to their employees. Public funding in United State is only available to people without jobs and who are unable to purchase health