United States of America (USA) Healthcare System
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A United States of America (USA) Healthcare System is a healthcare system that is a U.S. system.
- Context:
- It can be measured by: U.S. Total Health Expenditure (PPP) Per Capita, ...
- Example(s):
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: US Public Health, Teenage Pregnancy in The United States, Non-Profit Hospital, For-Profit Hospital, World Health Organization, Health Insurance in The United States.
References
2020
- (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States Retrieved:2020-8-26.
- Health care in the United States is provided by many distinct organizations. Health care facilities are largely owned and operated by private sector businesses. 58% of community hospitals in the United States are non-profit, 21% are government-owned, and 21% are for-profit. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent 9,403 on health care per capita, and 17.1% on health care as percentage of its GDP in 2014. Healthcare coverage is provided through a combination of private health insurance and public health coverage (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid). The United States does not have a universal healthcare program, unlike most other developed countries. In 2013, 64% of health spending was paid for by the government, and funded via programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Veterans Health Administration. People aged under 65 acquire insurance via their or a family member's employer, by purchasing health insurance on their own, getting government and/or other assistance based on income or another condition, or are uninsured. Health insurance for public sector employees is primarily provided by the government in its role as employer. Managed care, where payers use various techniques intended to improve quality and limit cost, has become ubiquitous. The United States life expectancy is 78.6 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990; this ranks 42nd among 224 nations, and 22nd out of the 35 industrialized OECD countries, down from 20th in 1990. In 2016 and 2017 life expectancy in the United States dropped for the first time since 1993. Of 17 high-income countries studied by the National Institutes of Health, the United States in 2013 had the highest or near-highest prevalence of obesity, car accidents, infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, injuries, and homicides.[1] A 2017 survey of the healthcare systems of 11 developed countries found the US healthcare system to be the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of health access, efficiency, and equity. In a 2018 study, the USA ranked 29th in healthcare access and quality. Prohibitively high cost is the primary reason Americans have problems accessing health care. The rate of adults uninsured for health care peaked at 18.0% in 2013 prior to the ACA mandate, fell to 10.9% in the third quarter of 2016, and stood at 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018, based on surveys by the Gallup organization beginning in 2008. At over 27 million, the number of people without health insurance coverage in the United States is one of the primary concerns raised by advocates of health care reform. Lack of health insurance is associated with increased mortality, about sixty thousand preventable deaths per year, depending on the study. A study done at Harvard Medical School with Cambridge Health Alliance showed that nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with a lack of patient health insurance. The study also found that uninsured, working Americans have an approximately 40% higher mortality risk compared to privately insured working Americans. In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) became law, enacting major changes in health insurance. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the law in June 2012 and affirmed insurance exchange subsidies in all states in June 2015.
- ↑ National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2013) "U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health" Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries, Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, Eds. Committee on Population, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, and Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Institute of Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
2020
- https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-08-26/exceptional-american-relationship-public-health
- QUOTE: ... Any U.S. administration would have struggled to succeed against COVID-19, given the legacy of a weak public health infrastructure and the polarization of the nation’s politics. Public health, defined as “what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy,” has long been in tension with American individualism and contrary to the incentives of the lucrative health-care system. Just three percent of the national resources spent on health care go to state and local public health efforts, with underfunded agencies suffering enormous losses of staff and expertise in recent years. The fact that Americans have difficulty finding common ground on any issue — at the start of the pandemic, record numbers identified partisan divides as strong — compounded these deficits. Under such conditions, any response would likely be seen, as with climate change, as an opportunity for political posturing rather than as a scientific necessity. ...