Comparison of U.S./Other Healthcare System - Essay Example

Comparison of U.S. and Netherlands Healthcare System Affiliation: Introduction Health care costs in the United States despite it being such a successfully industrialized country are very costly and simply unaffordable by many people without insurance. This is an irony coming from a super power country who cannot afford to subsidize the health care costs to its citizens who are using a lot of their pay for taxes leaving little for the highly expensive health care services. Netherlands on the other hand which is also a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and development (OECD) same as US does not have the kind of economic success the US has but when it comes to healthcare, it is way more successful than the US (Peterson and Burton, 2008).

The three most important things US should think about when it comes to health care like most countries do are costs, quality and accessibility. If the costs are too high limiting accessibility to the poor population, then quality does not matter because even if the hospitals offer the best quality in terms of technology and medical researches, then it will not benefit those who need it. Individuals in the US spend an average of $8,000 on healthcare annually. This is compared to Netherlands which spends annually an average of $4,000 on the same healthcare.

This high costs of healthcare in the US is what basically limits majority of the people to access the highly modernized hospital services and opt to visit clinics when they are sick (Niles, 2011). The major funder of healthcare in the US is the private insurance while in the Netherlands is social insurance program that taps into the sickness fund which funds over 60% of its population with the remaining 40% being funded by private insurance whose costs are subsidized depending on age, sex and employer (Hall, 2011).

In the US, the major provider of healthcare is private insurance whose services depend on the payment the patient makes. For the poor patients therefore and who cannot afford proper health coverage, they depend on the government insurance Medicare (for those above 65 years) and Medicaid for the rest. Medicaid have low fees and high administrative bureaucracy and hence many physicians do not like such patients leaving the poor population without healthcare funding and the middle class with the option of paying for services according to the money they can afford (Niles, 2011).

The price of drugs in the US is also appalling compared to that in the Netherlands. There is also an increase in the prescription of drugs and drug utilization in the US which further increases the overall costs of the money spent on hospital care. What people have opted now in the US is to just purchase drugs for themselves instead of having double or triple spending: drugs, hospital fees and doctors’ fees. Over the counter prescription drugs have therefore been on the increase with majority of the people just continuing to use painkillers instead of having proper medical checkup and treatment of their diseases.

Finally, in the US, healthcare services are provided after the payment has been made and not any other way. The first thing a sick person is asked is not where he or she is sick but the insurance or down payment for the services to be offered. This is the opposite in Netherlands where the patient is treated first and then issues of medical bills come after and over the counter prescription are limited (Hall, 2011). This shows the true capitalistic nature of US and the lack of humanity for the people in the healthcare services.

ReferencesHall, R. (2011). Handbook of Healthcare System Scheduling. New York: Springer. Niles, N. (2011). Basics of the U.S. Health Care System. New Jersey: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Peterson, C. and Burton, R. (2008). The U.S. Health Care Spending: Comparison with Other OECD Countries. New York: NOVA Publishers.