Core Problems of the US HealthCare System - Essay Example

Sociology Core Problems of the US HealthCare System Over time, the US healthcare system has faced a wide range of challenges in terms of service delivery. The core problems of the US health care system include the cost of care, its coverage and the quality of medical services. While the US spends more than any other country on health care, it is apparent that the government has a long way to go in terms of improving its healthcare. There is evidence that the core-problems of the US healthcare system have a mutual relationship and one problem leads to the other. While the government has put policies, such as the Affordable Care Act, there is evidence that these problems remain persistent and they are still calling for firm measures. On this ground, it remains crucial for the government to develop new strategies that will ensure that every American public can access quality affordable care at a minimum cost. One of the challenges that the US public has faced with its healthcare is the increased cost of treatment. The health insurance policies are expensive and only the middle to high class members of the public can afford such care. Despite the US government spending more than any other country on healthcare, it is clear that this has not brought down the cost of health in the US. For instance, the poor who qualify for Medicaid have to part with a large portion of their income. Besides, while Medicaid is specifically designed for the poor, it is clear that not all poor are eligible for this program. From this perspective, the cost of health care has barred many members of the public from accessing health care. Secondly, the insurance coverage of health care in the US has become a major problem in the US. Over 16% members of the public in US have no access to any form of insurance. A majority of uncovered members of the public includes disadvantaged and the poverty-stricken communities. Those who are not covered by any form of insurance are forced to seek for substandard care. As a result, those who cannot access healthcare contributed to high mortality in the US as most die out due to lack of quality care. Lastly, the quality of care in the US is an issue that has persisted for decades. While US remains home of innovation, there is evidence that the quality of healthcare remains a problem. As compared to countries such as UK and Canada, the US healthcare quality lags behind (Blas 1684-1689). Evidently, the state lacks high skilled personnel as well as necessary healthcare equipment crucial for improving the standard of healthcare. In light of these challenges, the US government has a long way to go in improving its healthcare system. From a close look, there is a close-relationship between the US healthcare problems. To begin with, the high cost of insurance in the US has resulted to the low coverage within the country. A large portion of the uncovered members of the public lack enough capital to pay for insurance. Therefore, they opt to stay uncovered rather than use most of their income of medical cost while they cannot meet their basic needs. The poor in US, majority who includes the non-white Americans, can barely afford these services and hence contribute to the highest proportion of uncovered members. The quality of healthcare has a direct relationship to the cost of healthcare in the US. Those who cannot afford private insurance prefer to pay the Medicaid policy, which is partially funded by the government. On the other hand, those who prefer this government insurance have access to low quality of services. This explains why majority of the Americans prefer to use private policies in an effort to ensure that they can access private health physicians to improve the quality of service. In light of poor quality of services offered by the government hospitals, majority of the poor prefer to stay out coverage rather than avoid long queues and poor services in these hospitals (Blas 1684-1689). Therefore, the core problems of the US healthcare are interrelated and reinforce each other. The weaknesses of the US healthcare system have had serious consequences on the public wellbeing. First, affordability of healthcare has contributed to the high mortality rate among the poor within the state. Statistics indicate that the marginalized such as the Black Americans and Latinos contributed to the highest mortality rate within America. Evidently, the marginalized groups cannot afford care for serious diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart diseases. The substandard healthcare has contributed to high rates of death within the society. For instance, surgery patients in the US wait much longer to get treatment as compared to other countries such as the UK. Besides, it is clear that the US health system has contributed to the economic disparities within the country (Starr 284). In US, the US healthcare systems allow only the rich to access quality services while the poor access substandard services. The consequences of poor healthcare system within the US have had serious impacts on the poor in the country. The Affordable Care Act is one of the strategies that the US government has engaged in the process of refining its healthcare system. Under this act, the government increased its national spending on healthcare in a strategy to reduce the cost of healthcare within the US. The government targeted the poor to ensure that they are covered in the Medicaid insurance policy. The government intends to ensure that over 96% of the US public is covered within the insurance policy. The government increased subsidies will ensure that a greater proportion of the public pay lower insurance premiums which will motivate the poor to seek insurance coverage (Starr 279). The government also paved way for competition between private and public healthcare providers as one way of bringing down cost of healthcare and improving quality within the country. However, the problem of healthcare quality will persist even after the enactment of the affordable care act. As the number of members of public enrolled to insurance policies increase, the physician to patient ration will become lower and the number of hospital beds will be insufficient. Therefore, the US government will still face a challenge in improving the quality of services to a larger portion of the public covered within the insurance policies. The issue of quality is serious problem that the US government needs to address within its healthcare policies. The quality of care is one of the factors that measure the efficiency of the healthcare system within a country. Notably, the medical needs within the US are increasing and the Obama Care Act is bound to increase the number of patients that will demand healthcare services (Conrad 123). According to the OECD, the quality of healthcare in US still lags behind in terms of number of physicians and the availability of beds. According to OECD statistics, the physician to patient ratio in US stands at 2.4, which is below the average of 3.1. Secondly, the US has 2.6 beds per 1000 members of the US, which is much below the standard capacity. Therefore, the US government needs to shift its focus towards the creation of the health personnel as well as the medical infrastructure. The government needs to increase infrastructural budgets and its healthcare personnel if they have to overcome the persistent problems of the healthcare system. While the Obama care Act solved the problem of access and affordability of healthcare within the US, it is clear that issue of quality still remains crucial if the US has to standardize his healthcare system. Anti-Vaccination Campaigns in the United States The use of vaccinations as disease prevention procedures is one of the historical controversies that have persisted in the US history of healthcare. Since the introduction of the inoculation against diseases such as cowpox in the eighteen century, there has been a great opposition for such treatment procedures. The vaccination procedures were meant to develop immunity amongst members of public to develop immunity against killer diseases that were hard to treat. However, the anti-vaccination activists argue that such procedures are dangerous and pose great danger to members of public besides violating their individual rights to choose the healthcare services that they need. However, it is clear that vaccination procedures in the US have reduced the mortality rate by fighting certain diseases that have claimed the lives of many members of the society (Stern and Howard 11). However, the re-emergence of the anti-vaccination campaign today has brought about new facts concerning the efficiency of such procedures in disease prevention. Evidently, while the vaccination is crucial for the US, it is clear that the US needs to consider its impact and improve the efficiency of these procedures to win the public support for this system of healthcare. The anti-vaccination campaigns started way back in the 18th century as soon as the vaccination campaigns were launched. The US government used vaccination as part of its complementary and alternative medicine procedures. At this time, diseases such as measles and whooping cough were serious diseases that threatened the lives of many young children in the US. The government implemented compulsory vaccination procedures as ways of preventing such diseases and reducing the mortality rate within the public (Stern and Howard 17). However, the anti-vaccination campaigns emerged with a number of issues being raised against the vaccination procedures. One of the issues is that vaccines had adverse effects on the public and were potential causes of other disorders. Besides, the vaccination procedures defied the rights of the public to acquire informed care and to make free decisions on the kind of healthcare they intend to receive. Lea Thompson’s documentary on the ill impacts of vaccines in the public domains was the main trigger of anti-vaccination campaigns in 1982 in the US. In her documentary, she stated that the whooping cough campaign was directly connected to the increase in cases of autism in children, hence raising significant doubt on credibility of the vaccines. Therefore, the public resisted whooping cough vaccination and the result was death of many children in this year (Starr 23). However, modern science has ensured safety of vaccines and guaranteed minimal side effects of these alternative procedures. The anti-vaccination campaigns have hit the wall after serious diseases such as whooping cough have continuously killed members of their public. The government has faced a dilemma in implementing the vaccination procedures in their effort to control preventable diseases within the public. The anti-vaccination campaigns have based their arguments on the safety of these medicines, their efficiency, side effects and cultural and religious implication of such procedures. The government has largely associated the anti-vaccination campaigns with unfounded rumors that have inadequate scientific grounds. One of the ways that the government has dealt with such procedures is by developing compulsory vaccination procedures to ensure public safety. This is among the many times that the government has had to make generalized decisions for its public with an aim of protecting them from ignorance. However, the formation of the anti-vaccination campaigns was a fight for democracy with the health sector criticizing the government’s abuse of power in making vaccination procedures compulsory. Therefore, the government liberalized the vaccination procedures. However, this has come up with a challenge for diseases such as measles that can spread within a group. This implies that the health decision for one person may affect that of another. Therefore, anti-vaccination campaigns have had dire consequences on the public and in preventing serious diseases within the US. The anti-vaccination campaigns is unique has been one of the biggest challenges to medical power in the US. Evidently, the government has a mandate to make decisions at the best interest of the public in matters of healthcare. However, the public have absolute rights to make free decisions regarding the healthcare services that they intend to receive. This is because it matters to their personal life and such decisions have consequences on their future, religion, or even traditional belief (Conrad 43). However, the government thwarted the anti-vaccination campaigns by imposing compulsory vaccines to the public. While this decision was crucial at a time when the public suffered confusion, it was faced by a lot of opposition from activists. The liberals felt that government medical power was too much and it was crucial to reduce it to make sure that the public have the rights to make choices that have positive influences in their lives. Unlike other challenges in medical power, the anti-vaccination campaign placed issues of genuine concern on the issue. To begin with, there was scientific evidence that the vaccines had negative impact and many studies supported such claims. This explains why the government had to liberalize the vaccine issue and allow the public to make personal decisions regarding vaccination procedures. From a critical point of view, the anti-vaccination campaigns were an issue that sparked a controversy within the social realms. While there was good will to provide alternative care to the public, it is clear that the public was misinformed on the issue. From the results of the vaccination procedures, it was apparent that the vaccines had more positive impacts compared to negative impacts. The government’s procedure to impose its medical power by making vaccination compulsory was a wrong approach to influence the public. Notably, it would have been more crucial for the government to inform the public on the essence of vaccination. While it is evident that the vaccination procedures may be dangerous, the government required to inform the public on the advantages as well as dangers of the vaccination. Besides, the government has the obligation to ensure that the medical bodies minimize or even eliminate the negative consequences of the vaccines. This would be a more convincing approach to influence the public to accept these alternative medical care approaches towards health improvement in the US (Blume 682). The re-emergence of the anti-vaccination campaigns calls from different approach to medical service provision to ensure that the government influences the public to make decisions that are appropriate for their health. In conclusion, the anti-vaccination campaign is one of greatest controversies that have punctuated the history of Medical service provision in America. The social activist against vaccines came up after scholars came with contradictory reports showing that vaccines could dangers to the lives of the people and were a real threat to the survival of future generations. The government’s approach towards this opposition was a trigger to opposition against abuse for medical power within the social domain. The critics of the government strategy to make vaccination procedures compulsory was founded on issues of medical liberalization and the public rights of making medical decisions. The argument was that such laws infringed the religious, cultural and personal rights of individuals besides creating social risk within the society. For instance, evidence showing that vaccination against whooping cough was directly related to the increase in instances of autism within the public was an issue of genuine concern. The emergence of anti-vaccination campaigns in the recent past shows that the government needs to focus on new approaches to influence the public to accept alternative medical procedures and co-work with medical research to ensure that vaccines have no negative impacts on the lives of the US public. Works Cited Blas, Erik, et al. "Addressing social determinants of health inequities: what can the state and civil society do?." The Lancet 372.9650 (2008): 1684-1689. Blume, Stuart. "Anti-vaccination movements and their interpretations." Social science & medicine 62.3 (2006): 628-642. Conrad, Peter, ed. The sociology of health and illness. New York: Macmillan, 2008. Print. Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of Medicine. New York: Basic Books. 1982. Print. Stern, Alexandra Minna, and Howard Markel. "The history of vaccines and immunization: familiar patterns, new challenges." Health Affairs 24.3 (2005): 611-621. Read More