Sick Around the World

1. a) The health care system and Healthcare reform of in the United States has been having an increasingly urgent concern over the past 40 years. Until recently, indemnity insurance was the main source of health care coverage. It was a system that reimburses or pays the cost of medical services in the outcome of an individual’s injury or illness. Presumably, this kind of system as analyzed by the video, providers are made to overuse expensive, unnecessary treatments or diagnostic procedures. There are a lot that the US can learn from other developed countries around world. As seen on the video, the United States spends more on the healthcare system than any other developed nation. Virtually, 20 % of America’s GDP goes toward health care spending, putting the US in worse comparison to Canada, France, Germany and Switzerland, where actual health outcomes are considered much better. Patient co-pays or deductibles endeavor to limit excessive or extreme use of medical services. Healthcare costs continue to escalate, resulting in insurance firms frequently raising premium prices. One can easily agree with the documentary that a lot needs to be done to reform the health care system in the US. Market-based health system of insurance, for instance, has caused a human rights crisis that deprives a large number of Americans of the health care they require.
2. The most visible challenge is the 50 million individuals without health insurance; the distressing is the rates of preventable deaths, approximated to reach 101,000 citizens each year, simply due to the way U.S. health care system is organized. From the documentary, it can be agreeable that because health care in the United States is largely provided by many distinct organizations there are various inefficiencies.

Moreover, healthcare facilities in United States unlike many developed countries are largely owned and operated by a private sector. 58% of Americans community hospitals are today non-profit 21% are for-profit, and 21% are government owned. These health care problems within the US have continued to persist over the years despite available resources by the government to protect the right to health, repeated health reform efforts and record levels of health care spending. Through critical analysis, because social determinants, like race, income and environmental strongly influence individuals who become ill and those that receives access to quality health care, the health care challenges unduly affects under-resourced communities and disadvantaged groups, people living in poverty, immigrants and people of color. The video clearly portrays how the US continues to lag behind in issues of health care policy. The German health care system, for instance, is unique in many aspects in its attempt to combine a universal coverage plan on the one hand and competition among sickness funds, on the other hand. The US health care system is one-sided and never considers the benefits that the two drives.

1. b) The Obamacare Healthcare bill was a bill that was initially drafted to grant more rights to Americans and help reduce the inequalities in health care system. Furthermore, ObamaCare was intended to assist and offers ordinary Americans particularly the lower middle-income Americans subsidies to obtaining affordable and quality health insurance. Likewise, through Obamacare Healthcare bill, expansion of Medicaid to approximately 20 million more Americans was to be effected. Obamacare Healthcare bill was to seek to reform wasteful spending in the healthcare system and specific health care programs that were not working initially. Obamacare was to warrant that Americans were able in a position to obtain quality medical attention irrespective of race, state, any preexisting conditions or income. Obama’s health care bill was to regulate the insurance companies, but at the same time allow health care choices to remain between the patient and his or her doctor( Pipes, 78). Assuming these proposals worked effectively, the system would benefit a lot of individuals who obtain this insurance.

However in my critical analysis of the plan, it has failed to ensure it leaves to its spirit. Rationally, it has been unpractical to implement the health care plan effectively. In the short run, the provisions allow for congestion of the health care systems that goes against the intended goal of the plan (Pipes, 36). The congestion will also be soon experienced in the health insurance. This can be seen in the rate at which population is growing compared to the health care system itself. The plan also makes patients seeking these health care systems be on the providers of health care insurance. This because it becomes difficult for government agencies monitors the services through keen observation, one can agree that there is a lot that has to be done in the health care system in totality. Overall, the health care challenges are the result of the commodification and privatization of the U.S. health system, which normally reflects market imperatives or profit interests that devalue dignity, human needs, and equality.

Work cited

Pipes, Sally. The Truth About Obamacare. Washington, DC: Regnery Pub, 2010. Print.