Health Care Dysfunctions and their Solutions

The American health care system has been previously bragged as the most excellent around the world until the emergence and realization of its major dysfunctions. The increasing number of American people who still could not afford the high cost of the health care system as well as the obvious problems within the structure itself is concrete manifestations that the existing health care program is no longer working to the advantage of the people.In fact, the alarming reality of the escalating health care price and its apparent inaccessibility definitely comprise a valid predicament particularly dysfunctions in the health care system. In any dilemma, there are possible solutions and however difficult, concerned people including authorities and those belonging in the health care industry need to continue look for ways to address and eventually solve the system’s failures.This is because in doing so, the health care system’s objectives to advocate excellent health among peopl e, be accessible and for it to be at reasonable price will ultimately become a reality hence paving way for the rectification of health care dysfunctions. Hence, the said factors are what the readers will be able to learn from the topic of health care system ultimately paving the way for the essential understanding of its dysfunctions and needed solutions.Health Care System, an OverviewThrough a comparison of the different health care structures of a variety of countries, relevant survey results indicated the true nature of a high-quality and reasonable health care system. The pieces of information and ideas resulting from such studies have signified a clear assessment of the health care systems of the United States and several countries as regard concerns about its price, accessibility, quality and choice of people but most importantly the effectiveness of the system in creating good health among people (â€Å"The U. S. health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expen sive? †, 2001).Citing the statistical report by the World Health Organization on some 191 member countries, the global health body was able to create three major objectives which also serve as the factors to be considered for a country’s health care system to be considered as good and fair. These include the health care program’s promotion of good health hence â€Å"making the health status of the entire population as good as possible† (cited in â€Å"The U. S. health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive?† 2001).Responsiveness is also a requirement where the system needs to respond to people’s prospects of appropriate health management and the corresponding orientation by health care providers to their respective public. Health care system should also be rational or fair in its costs and financing thereby assuring the financial protection of people and wherein its costs determined and spread based from a client’s financial capacity (â€Å"The U. S. health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive?†, 2001).Hence, the health care system’s general and excellent characteristic could be best yet simply exemplified in a way that it should supposedly deal with failures concerning its price, worth, convenience and variety. Health Care Dysfunctions Failures in the health care system are already evident even for the past years. Citing the Census Bureau, Davidz (2007) reported that there were already close to 47 million Americans who were not insured or not part of the country’s health care system for at least the past two years.While the statistics is only around 15 percent of the overall American population, recent records have shown that the percentage is likely to increase taking into consideration the significant dysfunctions of the system. Davidz also mentioned an economist’s observation that health care malfunction is characterized by too expensive or unaffordable health care program. However, the author noted that a possible plan to make a program reasonably priced discourages the provision of health care as it will slash into the enormous, untaxed privileges offered to those belonging to the top structure of an organization (Davidz, 2007).In essence, this cost-related failure of health care is an essential element which needs to be resolved. A personal experience or observation proves this particular dysfunction. In the State of California alone, approximately seven million residents do not have health coverage or health care program. The number is regarded to be the country’s biggest uninsured public and that the uncontrollably increasing price has been noted to be the main detrimental factor which pressures the inexpensiveness of any health care.While the emergence of the so-called â€Å"year of health reform† in California guarantees change in the system, it is still unfortunate to note that other equally-impo rtant health care dysfunctions continue to be unaddressed. Aside from the failure of making the system affordable, other malfunctions include the need for the system to be of high quality, accessible and provider of different selections where a person has diversity in choosing what health care plan is best fitting (Smith, 2007).Meanwhile, the accessibility failure of the American heath care only proved that the country is the only developed nation, aside from South Africa, which fails to give such benefit to its people. In contrast, the government only provides a mixture of insurance coverage offered by private organizations which is determined according to one’s employment as well as some government-based health programs which cater to active and retired military personnel, handicapped and deprived citizens. Such dysfunction forms severe breach as far as the accessibility of the insurance coverage.Coupled this with the cost fiasco, more people eventually let go of their resp ective health care program (â€Å"The U. S. health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive? †, 2001). A research has also proven that Americans are provided with only half of the suggested and supposed health care. Such study was determined based from the rising proofs of quality-related dysfunction in the American health care system. This also showed that a health program does not ensure one from getting quality care (Napier, 2006).Additionally, the system only poses harm to patients because it fails to live up to what is expected and that extensive quality-related issues are manifested by the rising number of medical blunders. Such error is due to the fact that people are provided with the misleading notion of service quality instead of the needed clinical or medical quality (â€Å"American families deserve quality health care,† 2007). Solutions to Health Care Dysfunctions Possible solutions were already provided such as overhauling the system wher ein the new administration commits to make health care program carry a high cost tag (Feld, 2009).However, what are needed are concrete solutions which aim to finally get to the bottom of this issue. Specifically as regard the quality of the health care, medical blunders need to be avoided through correct diagnosis, surgery and medication. These can be particularly done by creating and implementing means to track such clinical mistakes which will make health providers liable for the blunder as well as also ensuring the best quality among medical personnel making them fit for their work (â€Å"American families deserve quality health care,† 2007).As for the high cost, there is a need to limit the price of medical technologies, services and medication thereby ensuring the benefit of both the health care providers and clients. Aside from private-based health programs, government-initiated plans need to be more diverse offering easier access to almost sectors of the society such as children (Davidz, 2007). Finally, giving people with free choice of suitable health care program and provider will be another significant step to completely address, if not resolve the problem.Conclusion A nation’s health care system is expected to be free of dysfunctions in order to attain the good well-being of people. While failures in the system are inevitable, what is important and required are that the needed solutions are clearly identified and effectively implemented.References Davidz, E. (2007). Diagnosing the problem but not the remedy. Retrieved January 13, 2009, from http://www. marketwatch. com/news/story/healthcare-problems-agreed-solutions-not/story. Feld, S. (2009, January 11).Congressional Budget Office Reveals Budget Hurdles in Financing Healthcare Reform. Message posted to http://stanleyfeldmdmace. typepad. com/ Napier, M. (2006).All Americans at risk of receiving poor quality health care. Retrieved January 13, 2009, from http://www. rwjf. org/files/publ ications/other/asch_nejm_20060316. pdf National Partnership for Women & Families. (2007).American families deserve quality health care. Retrieved January 13, 2009, from http://www. nationalpartnership. org/site/PageServer? pagename=qcn_factsheet_poorquality Smith, M. D. (2007).Health Care Reform 2007: Defining Problems, Examining Solutions. Retrieved January 12, 2009, from http://www. chcf. org/topics/view. cfm? itemID=132238 University of Maine. (2001).The U. S. Health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive?. Orono, Maine: Bureau of Labor Education.