U.S. Healthcare System: Inefficiency & High Cost

Executive Summary: The healthcare system of the United States is one of the most inefficient healthcare systems in the industrialized world due to several reasons. To begin with, the healthcare system of the United States pays more money per capita, although they still experience the lowest expectancy among the developed world. In 2005, the Organization for Economic Operation and Development (OECD) noted that the United States spends about $9451 per capita only on healthcare alone- thus being ranked the first among the developed countries (McCarthy, 2015).

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According to the World Health Organization, even though the United States is ranked first when it comes to expenditure on healthcare, it was ranked 43rd when it comes to life expectancy (Harper, Kaufman & Cooper, 2017). For instance, the life expectancy in the United States still stands at 78.9 years, with huge populations uninsured compared to the other developed countries across the world. The number of Americans who are insured by the ACA has been declining significantly, according to the ACA report 2016.

Scope of Problem: The major challenge that is affecting the United States Health care system is that most of the health care facilities and institutions are owed by the private sector (Echouffo-Tcheugui et al., 2017). As a response to the surging cost of health care, President Obama, in his first two years in office, passed various legislations to bring such trends to a stop. The passing of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 was one significant achievement that he made towards the push for the advancement of the Universal healthcare systems (McCarthy, 2015).

However, the challenge was that this policy did not go far enough in adequately solving the health care problems of the United States. The major challenge that affects the healthcare system is that the U.S. government only pays for approximately 65% of healthcare spending. In comparison, 79% of the health facilities in the country are owned by private sectors (Sonier et al., 2013).In the year 2016, for instance, about 37% of the health insurance coverage was done by the government, while 67% of the health coverage is done by the private sector (Reinhardt et al., 2004).

Various programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security and well CHIP were established to ensure that the too young, too old, and the persons living with a disability could obtain health insurance (Sonier et al., 2013). Recent studies have indicated that the HealthCare cost in the United States is relatively higher compared to that of the other developed countries across the world (Sirovich, Woloshin & Schwartz, 2011). Such studies also found out that the privatization and decentralization of most of the healthcare systems increase the cost since the focus is shifted from efficiency and quality of services to the profitability.

Policy Alternatives: The most appropriate solution for fixing the healthcare problem within the United States could be drafting some legislation to create a compulsory National Health Insurance plan funded by the government for the whole nation. Such a plan should be a government-funded not-for-profit system that would integrate all the health insurance companies into one federal health system. Therefore, the integrated healthcare program would have full coverage of all the health programs of the United States.

Most importantly, the program will receive funding from various sources such as government subsidies, monthly premium contributions, as well as surcharges from the use of harmful substances. The monthly premium, for instance, will come from deductions from employees' monthly earnings based on their earnings. However, the policy could reduce the contribution requirements from areas that are prone to poverty, such as Kentucky. Employees could contribute to the program based on their earnings such that those who earn over $1,000000 pay 5% while those below the poverty line pay 2.5% of their earnings to the program. The contributions of the self-employed would be calculated based on the income levels and property values.

Possible challenges: The main challenge that could be experienced in the implementation of such a program is the bureaucratic nature of the American system when it comes to handling legislation with far-reaching implications. For instance, the American system is designed majorly around the idea of commerce and property rights.

As such, it would take time to institutional such a change within the government system due to the enforced pragmatic conservationism of the American political system. Again, due to divided interests, the health care topic has always been a polarizing issue, with some people believing that the healthcare system needs to be increasingly run by the private sector while some are believing that the government ought to take full control.

Policy recommendation: It would be appropriate to eliminate the private sectors from the United States Healthcare industry. This would eradicate the profit motive of various private healthcare providers, thus encouraging affordable and efficient healthcare for all American citizens.

This action is likely to lower the cost of healthcare since there will be no worry concerning profitability in the coverage of essential medical services such as surgeries as well as treatment of chronic illnesses. If the program is implemented with immediate effect, it will yield significant benefits in the healthcare industry.

Appendices

References

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Sonier, J., Fried, B., Au-Yeung, C. M., & Allen, B. (2013). State-Level Trends in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance: A State-by-State Analysis.