Comparison of the American Health Care System to that of France and Britain - Essay Example

Health Economics Comparison Paper Health is a very key aspect of a nation. It is, in fact, crucial because if people are unwell, the nation cannot move forward. The Mayan empire is a good example of this. Due to introduction of a number of diseases in a small span, the deaths from diseases like measles, influenza and colds among others caused a lot of people to die and thus contributed to the collapse Mayan empire. With such a concept in mind, this article will seek to compare the health care systems of Britain as well as France to that of the U.S , and then assess the level of health care offered to Americans in comparison to the other countries. Comparison of the American Health Care System to that of France and Britain British health care is categorized into four sections that is: the Central Government, the National Health Service (NHS), Local Government and finally, Independent sector (Baggott, 1994). The chain of command flows from the Central Government through the Health Department to the NHS authorities. This flow continues down to the Local Government level where the Department of Health is seen to play a highly active role in the workings of the local authorities in terms of health matters, which includes provision of resources to the local authorities. The system is different In the U.S. Here, the system is more liberal, and the government’s role is more supervisory. WWII had deprived the country of funds thus a system that encouraged private companies to play the major role in this industry was evolved (Niles, 2010). There were, however some attempts made to protect the welfare of the vulnerable members of the society such as the elderly as well as orphans through the passing of the Social Security Act of 1935 as well as the formation of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. Further improvements include the Children’s Health Insurance Program of 1997 which was further improved in 2010. On March 23, 2010, Obama signed the law of the Patient Protection an Affordable Care Act which was aimed at providing healthcare coverage to all Americans. However, the law received a lot of opposition from different quarters especially the opposing Republican Party, as shown in the current campaigns where his challenger Mitt Romney is against it. The Obama camp has gotten a further boost when the country’s Supreme Court upheld this policy whose opponents termed as too expensive for the country to maintain. This has meant that for now all Americans are covered though this may change should the Republicans come into power. Though this has not yet started being felt all over the country, it means that even minorities are going to be assured of access to health institutions (Gill, 2001). In France, there is a Health Ministry at the level of government. This supervises the professionals, medical facilities, financial intermediaries who include the Directorate of Hospitals, General Directorate of Health and the Directorate of Social Security. The ministry also supervises the 22 regional health planning-inspectorate bodies (DRASS) and further down to similar bodies in the 100 regions (DDASS). There are government regional overlords who supervise the DDASS (Raffel 2007). As indicated above, the structure of health care is organized in such a manner that the French, as well as the British models, have a clear flowing leadership and the government plays a more active role in health care than is the case in American system where the private companies have a more active role in the provision of health care. This means that a lot of minority groups are left out as they cannot afford healthcare (Gill, 2001). One imperative concern is that, in all three countries, the political responsibility fall with the government. A lot of funding is also provided by the government. This means that the differentdepartments are able to coordinate because of the active role that the governments play in them. The American system has no comprehensive or universal health insurance policy but that has been covered by the roles that the private individuals as well as laws that ensure that the welfare of the members of the society who cannot cater for themselves are looked after (Gill, 2001). In terms of pre and post natal treatment of citizens, women in Britain who are due for maternity leave will get about 18 weeks of leave with a chance of an extension in case of complications (Rodgers, 1982). Britain has a National Health Insurance which will cater for pre and postnatal aspect of the mother and her new born child. Prenatal care, as well as, delivery is free in Scandinavian countries as a result of their National Health Insurance policies. In Britain, the prenatal as well as postnatal services are provided on a regular basis in conformity with her healthcare policy. In comparison, the U.S has no comprehensive national health insurance (Baldwin, 2009). However, in terms of spending on healthcare, she out did Britain in 2003 as she spent above 2,500 dollars in comparison to Britain who’s spending was just above 2,000 dollars as was France though spending higher than Britain. At the same time, America spent above 5,000 dollars in the per capita total expenditure, France almost made the 3,000 dollar mark followed by Britain which spent just past the 2,000 dollar mark. In terms of hospitals, in 2003, America trailed France having almost 200,000 hospitals with France having almost 500,000 hospitals. This means that in that period more people in France had access to hospitals than did their counterparts in America. However, it is important to add that the quality of services in the American hospitals is very high. Baldwin asserts that the cardiovascular operations performed in America put her ahead of both France and Britain (Baldwin, 2009). He also opines that delivery through caesarian section in America is second only to Italy. So far, the comparison has managed to show that though she may not have comprehensive national health insurance, she has managed to provide the American citizen with a fairly satisfactory quality of health care. However, Baldwin states that in the U.S, six new born babies out of every one thousand die while in Britain, five new born babies die for every one thousand (Baldwin, 2009). The above example portrays that the American health care system is wanting on the issue of addressing child mortality. Though Britain is not far off from America, she seems to be doing something right which the U.S can do good to emulate. Though infrastructure wise, the U.S is in a good position, considering that she has good medical facilities in terms of heart operations as well as caesarian section operation being more available readily for the patients, patients in France can easily access medical facilities which is due to the fact that, in comparison to the U.S, she has more hospitals per head compared to the case in the U.S. This means that a woman in labor who wants to have her child in hospital will have the challenge of bed occupancy to contend with as according to Baldwin it is quite low though it is within the European spectrum which thus indicates that things are almost uniform on this matter (Gill, 2001). It is easy to assume that the system in the U.S is not working. It is also argued that out to a number of reasons as to why the problem in the U.S persists, which are its perceived slow pace to automate its record-keeping, which means that the bureaucracy level slows the process of accessing health care is made more cumbersome (Gill, 2001). However, states that spending on health care in the U.S is higher than that of France. The infrastructure in the U.S is fairly decent though the number of medical practitioners in America is lower than the case in France and Britain. This means that the doctors in America have a higher number of patients for each one of them than is the case in France or Britain. Though it has problems locally as no state is in itself perfect, the U.S has played a very pivotal role internationally with the spending it carries out in developing countries in health sectors, for example, in some African countries. It has an enormous responsibility in the treatment of HIV/AIDS related infections as well as fighting malaria, which is one of the top killers of pregnant mothers, as well as, infants in the majority of the developing world (Gill, 2001). The French, as well as the British systems, have seen to it that these two nations have done well in terms of making improvements for expectant mothers as well as those who are nurturing newborns. The American planners in the health sector can, therefore, not afford to ignore these two nations as well as majority of Scandinavian countries where much of plausible work has been experienced in the health sector. Conclusion This article has to pay homage to the strengths of the American model. Allowing the private enterprises to play a major role in the health sector has seen to it that the services are quite good in America. An example is the fact that cardiovascular operations conducted in American health institutions are quite stellar. This means that all is not lost and though there are a lot of negatives, there are, however, an equal amount of positives that ensure that the citizens get good quality health care which maintains a competitive edge on the international level in comparison to Western Europe where the level of development is at par with America. The fact that the Patient Protection, an Affordable Care Act has been passed points to a good direction that the country has taken and, which will allow her to cater for her citizens better. References Baggott, R. (1994). Health and Health Care in Britain. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishers. Baldwin, P. (2009). The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe are Alike. New York: Oxford University Press Gill, R. B. (2001).The Great Mayan Drought: Water, Life and Death. New Mexico: UNMPress. Rodgers, R. H. (1982). The Cost of Human Neglect: America’s Welfare Failure. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc. Niles, N. J. (2010). Basics of the U.S. Health Care System. Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning Raffel, M. W. (2007). Health Care and Reform in Industrialized Countries. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press. Read More