Health Care in the United States Essay

Health care is one of the most significant parts of the economy of United States; this is both from the social and economic perspectives. The sector's concerns get politicized in the country. It has happened due to the high cost of living standards and the rise in the economic status which people are striving to live up to always (Jonas and Kovner's, 2015). With this status quo in place, the health sector has occurred to be a broken part of the nation's endeavors. Almost everyone consents on the thoughts of improving the health services, but not on how it should be done and precisely the role that the government should play. The different policymakers have their strong views which have made it hard to compromise.

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Everyone in the society tries to answer the question; is health care a right or a privilege? I believe that health care is more of a right than a privilege. That is because, if we call health care an opportunity, then only those who can pay for it could access the medical services, which is no logically correct. Healthcare should be something that everyone in the society should be able to access despite their class in the community.

The roles of government in health care have been one of the issues that have raised a lot of concerns to the people and the government itself. Following are some of the roles of the government in health care: the citizens pay a lot of taxes to the government each year, with this, the government is supposed to make sure the public finds the value for their money (Ferlie & Shortell, 2001). The quality is only visualized by the federal government offering quality services to the people, which are affordable. There might be quality medication, but if they are not accessible, then they will not be any impactful to the citizens who are striving for other services too.

The affordable care act was an affirmative that the people could boast about, this was through the extension of the number of health insurances, and it enhances better access to health services to the people who got it. The problem was that only a few could afford it, so it was not a long-term solution to the public. There still needs to be more policies to address the problem.

Economic factors are one of the main, if not the main factors affecting the health care system in the United States. The country has one of the most expensive health systems in the world with a steady increase of the costs each decade. These costs are related to; the increase in population size, high number of the elderly, increase in technological expenses and the living costs. With the high rates of medical services, it becomes hard for the citizens of the lower class to access the services.

An article from "THE AVENUE," talks about the increasing costs of healthcare to the people and their inability to sustain their medical services (Lawrence, H. (2018). And with what I have read as advocated from the article, it would be great if the government embarked on activities that would reduce this expenses. The engagements would include, increasing the number of healthcare providers, decreasing the number of tests taken, giving the public more information and negotiating the drug costs.

References

Ferlie, E. B., & Shortell, S. M. (2001). Improving the quality of health care in the United Kingdom and the United States: a framework for change. The Milbank Quarterly, 79(2), 281-315.

Jonas and Kovner's, (2015). Health Care Delivery in the United States, 11th Edition. Springer publishing company.

Lawrence, H. (2018). How to lower health care costs in America: The next avenue.