Healthcare in the U.S.: Ways to improve it

Fang Lin

Healthcare is suffocating our population. The lifespan of people in the U.S. is getting shorter compared to the other countries because our healthcare is falling behind. The U.S. should start seeking out help from countries that have a successful healthcare system. Canada, Cuba, and Britain are some of the countries that are known for their healthcare system. The U.S. should compare its healthcare with these three countries to discover what it can do to improve its own. This problem has caught the attention of the candidates running for the 2008 presidential election. Improvement of healthcare has been a main debate among the candidates. Different strategies were argued to help shape the system. The improvement of the U.S. healthcare would not only help the people in America, but it would also affect the world globally. The actions that the U.S. can take toward improving the healthcare system is comparing its healthcare system with Canada, Cuba, and Britain, debating the plans that Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama offer, and encouraging individual citizens to follow Paul Farmer’s step toward helping treating patients in poor countries.

The U.S. Healthcare System Compared To Other Countries

The U.S. healthcare system is lagging behind compared to other countries. The government has invested a great amount of money into healthcare but it was not always used wisely. Still more and more people in the U.S. are going uninsured. The U.S. Census statically reports 47 million people uninsured in the U.S... Patients in the US do not have a long waiting list compared to Canada, but the medical fee is much higher than Canada. Expensive fees and lack of coverage are the main reasons more people in the US are going uninsured. The US healthcare has publically funded healthcare programs for the old, disabled, poor, and children, but it still lacks a universal healthcare coverage. The Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis noted, “ the United States stands out as the only nation in these studies that does not ensure access to health care through universal coverage and promotion of a ‘medical home’ for patients” (cited in Common Dreams News Center, 2007).

Cuba is one of the countries that provide a very successful healthcare system. Their medical system offers inexpensive medical fees and high quality services. Cuba offers an excellent doctors’ program. The doctors in Cuba receive free tuitions to medical schools. They are encouraged to travel to poor and sickly countries to help the poor. The Cuban doctors that travel to the poor countries were viewed as gods by the patients for their generosity of treating them for free. Also doctors are provided all over Cuba for the need of the patients in Cuba. The poor people in Cuba also receive free treatments from the doctors. The doctors work and live in their offices for the benefits of their patients being able to keep in touch with them anytime every day. Cuba’s hard work meets its accomplishment of having the lowest rate of AIDS and death rate in the Latin American countries.

Canada is another country that is known for its healthcare system. Canada’s healthcare system offers cheap medical fees and high quality services. The people in Canada receive universal coverage on their Medicare. Universal coverage means that everyone in Canada has a healthcare plan. Michael Moore noted, “The life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, and the life expectancy in Canada is 80.2” (cited in Michael Moore, 2007). Canada offers affordable medical fees, but it has a very long waiting list. The patients sometimes have to wait for weeks to make an appointment to see the doctor. Even in the emergency room, patients have to wait for hours to get treated. The interesting thing about this issue is that most people in Canada find this waiting time tolerable because of the low-cost of the medical fees.

Britain is also known for its successful health program, called National Health Service (NHS). The NHS provides free healthcare to all the people of the United Kingdom. In addition to the NHS, some people prefer to buy private healthcare plans from the private healthcare providers. Most people prefer the NHS because it is more convenient. There are three-hundred trusts in NHS that guide NHS. The trusts provide funding for NHS and ensure high quality care for the patients. Different trusts regulate different fields inside the healthcare system. For example, there are ambulance trusts for the ambulance system and mental health trusts for patients with mental health problems. These trusts help the NHS operate efficiently. 

The Healthcare Plans That the 2008 Candidates Offer

Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are two of the presidential candidates that offer different plans to help improve healthcare. Clinton’s health plan, the American Health Choices Plan, would help provide universal coverage. This plan would give the Americans benefits of affordable and reliable healthcare. All Americans would be able to afford healthcare and would still have healthcare if they lose their job. Also, small businesses would be able to provide healthcare to their employees because they would receive tax credits. One of Clinton’s accomplishments toward healthcare is through the SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) program that she created in Arkansas where it covers around six million children.

Obama’s healthcare plan, the National Health Insurance Exchange, makes sure that a private insurance plan would offer affordable healthcare coverage to all people. Everyone would be eligible for a health plan at an affordable price. Federal subsidies would be provided to all Americans to buy a private health care plan even if they were not qualified for Medicaid. With this plan, Americans could change jobs and still keep their healthcare. Obama also required all the children’s healthcare to be covered. One of Obama’s accomplishments is “passing legislations that expanded healthcare coverage to 70,000 kids and 84,000 adults” (cited in Obama, 2007).

The Individual Citizens That Offer Help Toward the Poor Countries

Paul Farmer is a citizen of the US who travels around the world to help the poor. Farmer is an American physician and anthropologist who was stationed in Haiti to cure the poor. Haiti is Farmer’s first destination. Since 1983, Farmer started working with patients in Haiti where he started his career. In 1987, Farmer became one of the founders of Partners in Health, which is an organization located in Haiti. Partner in Health is a world healthcare organization set up to help the undeveloped countries. It treats 1,000 patients every day in the poor part of Haiti without charge. They also work to heal the prisoners in Siberia from drug-resistant tuberculosis. Farmer’s “mission was to transform health care on a global scale, by focusing on the world’s poorest and sickest communities” (Kidder, 2007).

The Solution to This Problem

I think that the US healthcare system needs improvements. It is both up to the peoples and the government of the US to take some steps forward to accomplish this goal. The 2008 election is a chance for informed citizens to get out and vote for their choice of healthcare that the presidential candidates offer. While not all doctors are willing to make the sacrifice to practice in third world countries, if more doctors would contribute even small amounts of time to the poor, as Farmer does on a large scale, it would make a difference. Voters should expect the U.S. government to also get the most out of the money that they invest in their healthcare system. Voters should expect to consider having universal healthcare coverage for their healthcare system.

There are so many options provided for the US to choose from to improve its healthcare system. The governments provided the options and the citizens have the right to vote for their preference of healthcare. All the citizens in the US know that the only way to change the US system is to go out and vote.

References

Agence France Presse. (2007, May 15). US Health Ranks Last Compared to other Countries: Studies. Common Dreams News Center. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/15/1198/

BBC Action Network Team. (2007, May 22). How the Healthcare system works in England.RetrievedFebruary13, 2008 from http://bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A2454878

Cuban Experience. (1998).HealthcareinCuba.Culture Healthcare. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/healthcareincuba.html

Gelder, Van Sarah. (2007). Cuba’s Cure. Summer 2007: Latin America Rising.

RetrievedFebruary13, 2008, from http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1733

Michael, M. (2007). Sicko Factual Backup. Check up on the Facts. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/index.php

Obama, Barrack. (2008).Obama’08: Barrack Obama’s Plan. Retrieved April3, 2008, from

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

Clinton, Hillary (2008). Hillary for President: Providing Affordable and Accessible Health Care. Retrieved April 3, 2008, from http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/healthcare/

Kidder, Trace (2003).The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer: All Things Considered. Retrieved April3, 2008, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1472188