The U.S. Health Care System :( :( :(
After our lecture on health care systems last month, I became very interested in this topic mainly because I am going into a health related profession. A couple of weeks ago I came across this article on CBSnews.com titled “Poll: The Politics of Health Care�. Just the title was enough to catch my attention, so I read the article and found it was much related to our lecture.
The main point of this article is that the majority of Americans favor universal health care systems. CBS News and New York Times did a poll of Americans to see their actual thoughts on this topic. Some of the results were as follows:
-Providing health insurance to everyone is thought by two-thirds of Americans to be more important than keeping the costs of health care down.
-9 out of 10 people think the current U.S. health care system needs some type of fundamental change.
-36% believe that the current U.S. health care system needs to be completely redesigned.
-59% of Americans are very dissatisfied with the overall cost of health care in the U.S.
-The majority of Americans think the health care system can be improved by the government because they are capable of doing a much better job than private insurance companies.
-64% believe that the government needs to guarantee health insurance for everyone and only 31% believe the government needs to keep health care costs down.
The article also stated that in February 2007, health care was tied with jobs and the economy for the #2 issue the U.S. is facing. The #1 issue was the war in Iraq. The 2008 presidential campaign is sure to focus much attention on this very critical issue of the U.S. health care system.
This article was very interesting to read after our lecture because it was very reassuring to see that the majority of Americans feel the same way the majority of our class felt regarding the U.S. health care system. After learning about the different types of health care systems that exist around the world, I do believe that there is a better way of doing things here in the U.S. I am not sure what system I would choose if I had the option (a public assistance system or National Health Service system); however, I believe that both have many more benefits than our current system.
It is also very good to see that this critical issue is being given the attention it deserves. I think it may take some type to reformat our health care system, but I would like to think that in the future we may have one of the better systems, not one of the worst.