The US Healthcare System - Essay Example

Healthcare System ‘Healthcare Reform’ is the most important political issue in the United s. The US healthcare system is notable as it spends comparatively higher proportion of its gross domestic products on healthcare services. Furthermore, among the industrial nations, U.S. is the only country that does not have a universal healthcare policy for its citizens. The nation’s health care system is extremely fragmented due to dramatic increase in healthcare cost, high drug prices, healthcare abuse, and unfair business coalitions. Free healthcare policy is believed to be relevant to the context as it ensures coverage to all segments of the society. Despite the advanced technology and medical facilities, majority of U.S. people do not have access to adequate healthcare service. To illustrate, only avoidable medical errors cause around 1, 95,000 lives in American hospitals each year, and as many as 1.5 million as misdiagnosed. (Coates D., 62). Furthermore, around 50% of people are estimated to be uninsured or underinsured in the States. It is obviously an alarming ratio for a developed country like United States. It has been estimated that the country spent 13.7% of gross domestic products on healthcare services in 1999 (Stat.2001.cited in Jonas S. et al, 2). It shows the exceeding level of corruption prevailing in the U.S. medical field. As compared to all other countries, the United States has the highest rate of medical expenditure. This situation has been rapidly evolving due to a number of factors such as free market, profit driven pharmaceutical companies, healthcare abuse and corruption. The following statistics show the rampant increase in per capita expenses between 1940 and 2003. Year: 1940 1960 1970 1980 1990 2003 $30 $143 $348 $1067 $2737 $5711 (Sources: Kronenfeld J, Kronenfeld M R, 14-15; Jonas, 187-189). In addition, majority of people are lacking health insurance in the US. As Coates (2007, 62) states, in august 2005, 46.6millions Americans lacked health insurance of any kind. Moreover among the insured individuals many are having only group insurance coverage proposed by their employers. In most of the cases, premium amount is deducted from employee’s compensation and coverage lasts until the individual stops working with the employer. In addition, employers in USA are comparatively unwilling to offer health insurance to their employees because of the unaffordable premium rates. Besides the uninsured individuals there is another category of citizens who are medically uninsurable. Studies have estimated that 0.5 to 1.0 percent of the U.S. population belong to this group who in fact are very high beneficiaries of healthcare service (Kronenfield, 15). In this context, President Obama has proposed a new healthcare plan which might ensure affordable, high quality coverage to all Americans. According to him, this goal can be met by enhancing insurance competition between a public insurance program and private firms. He believes that competition would force private companies to reduce their premium rates in order to compete with the subsidized rates of public insurance. Escalating pharmaceutical fees and physicians’ fees are the subsequent effects of prevailing corruption in the current system. Healthcare issue can not be determined until the persisting corruption is effectively addressed. Private medical practitioners and profit determined healthcare organizations take advantage from the fragmented system. Since 1986, judgments and settlements under the U.S. False Claims Act have totaled $12billion with most of these being against well known drug makers (Campos, Pradhan, 29). Pharmaceutical Regulatory System has failed to prevent pharmaceutical fraud in the U.S. healthcare. Deceptive actions such as illegal off-label marketing and copying color, trademark and packaging have created an unpredictable environment in the service sector. Hence, in addition to the unaffordable expenditure, people are under the threat of low quality medication and fraud. Improper use of Emergency Room (ER) and the misuse of 911 services are two areas that are highly affected by healthcare abuse in the U.S. Most of the emergency rooms are heaving with excessive number of patients and struggling with insufficient number of nurses. Emergency rooms are being misused either by hospital operators or by people who are not in a condition to be admitted there. The use of ambulance service for no true emergency has become a very common abuse in the States. People simply ring to 911 as if it is a short cut to enter healthcare system without consulting a primary physician. Several steps have been taken by Federal government to investigate and prevent health care abuse. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996(HIPAA) established a national Healthcare Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The FY report 2007 gives the details of several billions of dollars that have been confiscated from fraud pharmaceutical companies. Company Crime Amount Intermune Inc Marketed prohibited drug $30.2 million Jass Pharmaceuticals Illegal marketing practices $20 million Cell Therapeutics Inc. Off-label marketing $10.5 million Federal Govt.’s total gain $1.8billion (Source: HCFAC, FY2007 Report). However, according to the opponents of healthcare reform, free health care is the hidden agenda of socialist concept. Therefore, attempts taken to regulate the industry have been defeated by special interest groups such as politicians, insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical industries, and private medical sectors. The failure of Clinton’s Healthcare Plan 1994 and the current political campaign going on against Mr. Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan are the best examples for unfair coalition. In fact, no genuine study has been conducted so far to evaluate the root causes of the issue. All the Congressional efforts have been only dealing with certain symptoms of the actual ‘disease’ for decades. Both, the Liberal and Conservative camps conveniently left out two major aspects of the issue; ‘healthcare abuse and pharmaceutical corruption’. Although U.S. hospitals are highly leveraged with advanced technology and medical equipments, the technical application has been utilized to extort money from customers. Furthermore, American health care system is subjected to class, education, socio-economic status, employment, and ethnicity. Although technological advancement has improved the life expectancy of Americans, it is not an indication of progress in health care system. Only people with high earning jobs have access to better health care. People with more education and better economic status are found healthier than middle class people. Less educated and low income people are more vulnerable to chronic diseases. The recent recession has deteriorated their condition more than ever before. According to Jonas (2003), racial and ethnic status is linked to quality of service received. According to Republicans, the concept of ‘socialized medicine’ is against the social privileges of the US citizens. Regardless of its high cost, the U.S. health care system is highly competent and people have the freedom to get its maximum benefit. Republicans fear that the socialized health care would limit the range and quality of medical treatment, to the given insurance coverage. However, the President reiterates that the public insurance will only be an option; and people will have the freedom to choose private plan if they think it suits them. To conclude, the U.S. healthcare industry has to be regulated in order to ensure public welfare. The US Government has to swiftly address the burgeoning corruption and abuse to save the sector from the throttlehold of medical mafia. Since majority of the country’s population strive for free health care, the country can not move further with an endangered healthcare system. The existing profit- driven healthcare system has to be regulated effectively. A subsidized coverage option will enhance public interest, and will force private insurance companies to reduce premium rates. As Mr. Obama thinks, this free health care plan would help people save considerable amount of their healthcare expense every year. Works Cited “Benefits of Health Reform”. Organizing for America. 20 March. 2010 http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/ Coates D. A Liberal Tool Kit: Progressive Responses to Conservative Arguments. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. Campos J, Pradhan S. (Eds). The Many Faces of Corruption: Tracking Vulnerabilities at the Sector Level. World Bank Publications, 2007. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice. Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program Annual Report For FY 2007. November 2008. 20 March, 2010 http://oig.hhs.gov/publications/docs/hcfac/hcfacreport2007.pdf Jonas S., Goldsteen R L., Goldsteen K. An Introduction to the U.S. Healthcare System. edn.5, Springer Publishing Company, 2003. Kronenfeld J, Kronenfeld M R. Healthcare Reform in America: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO, 2004. Read More