Healthcare System In Turmoil Writing Assignment

Healthcare System in Turmoil
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Healthcare System in Turmoil
Introduction
Most Americans believe that the U.S. healthcare system is in turmoil. According to a Gallup poll results published on January 19, 2019, 70 percent of respondents claimed that the health care system in the United States has significant issues compared to 30 percent who claimed that the system has minor to no issues (McCarthy, 2019). While most Americans (55%), including Democrats and Republicans would rate the system positively when it comes to the quality of care, a higher percentage of citizens claim that the U.S. healthcare system is facing serious challenges in terms of costs of care (80%), and the general healthcare coverage problems (76%) across the country (McCarthy, 2019). Therefore, the two major problems of the healthcare system in the U.S. remain to be the cost of care and the access to healthcare services. This paper discusses the challenges and impact of the cost of care and nationwide coverage of the United States health care system and examines the benefits and risks of national healthcare insurance in addressing the present challenges.
Major problems of healthcare and impact
Between 1999 and 2009, the United States healthcare expenditures, including insurance coverage, healthcare taxes, and out-of-pocket expenditures almost doubled, escalating from $1.3 trillion to about $2.5 trillion and this trend has continued to be experienced to the present day (Auerbach & Kellermann, 2011). While the country plunged into a recession in 2009 and many Americans lost their employment, the cost of healthcare increased by 4 percent and the percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) that is reserved for healthcare rose from 13.8 percent to 17.6 percent compared to the previous decade (Auerbach & Kellermann, 2011). These changes eroded disposable income of families across the country, indicating how healthcare cost can affect spending in the US.
Besides the cost of healthcare, a large number of Americans lack a health insurance cover. In a study conducted in 2017, Woolhandler and Himmelstein (2017) found that about 28 million Americans were uninsured and millions more were at risk of losing coverage under the proposed policy reforms by Congress. This low coverage results in increased mortality rates as observed in a study published by the Institute of Medicine in ...