Question

What influences does public health have on the U.S. health care system? Provide both positive and negative examples.

Answer 1

INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC HEALH ON US HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

                                    Public health is the science of promoting health, preventing disease and injury at the population level, from local neighbourhoods to countries and regions of the world. The approach depends on systematic data collection to monitor population health and identify the underlying cause of disease. The United States have a mixed healthcare system where the health services are provided via a mix of public and private systems, mostly dominated by the private healthcare system.

                                  The US healthcare system is more influenced by the market forces, it encourages healthcare innovation by promoting competition among the healthcare service providers. This may lead to the development of new healthcare technologies that can be used to address public healthcare. But a major disadvantage is that the market forces can create healthcare disparities between population groups, which refers to differences in access and availability of healthcare services. In US, the public health programmes like Medicare and Medicaid are designed specifically for the elderly, people with disabilities and low income families and individuals.

                                    The mission of public health is to fulfil society’s interests in ensuring conditions under which people can be healthy. The Government public healthcare agencies should provide healthcare keeping in mind the three major core functions which includes a routine assessment of populations health, development of a comprehensive public health policy using science and leadership and assurance to provide the basic health safety needs to those who could not afford them. Among the determinants of health, racial and ethnic health disparities highlights that minority populations suffer disproportionately in basic health indicators. The Federal government spearheaded by the Department of Health and Human services surveys the populations health and sets policies and standards as per the regulations. The assessment of public health indeed has some serious implications on the healthcare delivery of US. It is estimated that chronic diseases are a major drive of healthcare costs, which contributes to about 75 percent of the Nations’ healthcare spending.

                                    In US, most of the public health are uncovered which means that there is always a deficiency in the assessment and gap between assessment and delivery in public health sector. Assessing the public health indeed has some serious implications on how the healthcare system works, especially in the US. Systems like Medicare have had positive impacts on the healthcare delivery of the nation, but a more serious approach to public health assessment needs to be done, else the influence may be diverted which may result in poor health management as seen in recent times where it has been severely affected by the Covid 19 virus which indeed has become a menace to the Nation.