United States Health Care System

3800 words 16 pages
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17 Nov 2006

US Health Care System: Does the Public Get the Best Return vs. Investment

The United States spends more of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on healthcare then any other industrialized country in the world and because of this one would think that the U.S. provides one of the top universal healthcare plans for all citizens without health insurance. Furthermore, the U.S.’s overall health system performance is 37 out of 191 (qtd in U.S. Census Bureau), obviously 37 out of 191 is horrible especially because of the investment made by tax paying citizens. This problem affects a massive amount of Americans. Approximately 40 million Americans are without health insurance and because of the increasing expenditures the numbers of …show more content…

In this time there was also competition between Blue Cross, which provided full payment for services, and commercial indemnity companies that leave patients with out of pocket expense. The competition of this period caused healthcare providers to strive to be the best and offer the best services for their customers. The Golden Age of Healthcare took place between 1965 and 1987, this is when the U.S. started to see an annul increase in the GDP on healthcare spending. The golden age refers to the expected annual increase in healthcare spending over the years. The golden age was referred to as a period which was tremendously open ended fiscally, furthermore, this period basically allowed healthcare providers to have clinical freedom. Health care professionals practiced according to what was best for the patient not based on what seemed best monetarily. In 1965 Medicare and Medicaid were introduced to the U.S.. These two social programs were basically introduced to help aid the impoverished and elderly obtain healthcare. Before this plan was introduced the poor visited physicians 20% less than those not impoverished but after a few years of the programs existence the poor visited physicians 18% more often than those not impoverished (Reinhardt 100). In 1973 the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) was brought into effect. HMO provided grants and loans for the start up of new HMOs and the expansion of existing HMOs. Until 1987 healthcare was spending at the

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