Question

that compares and contrasts the US health care system with the health care system of UK countries .This research paper should focus on the dimensions of access, quality and cost. The research paper should include your conclusions regarding the relative effectiveness of the US and the UK country(s) in furthering the health of their populations

Answer 1

Answer:

Comparison between the health care system of US and UK

The health care system of US and that of the UK are at the two opposite extreme end of the scale. Health care system in US consists of a large percentage of privately owned health care institutions whereas in UK, the health care system involves the institutions that are the public sector organisation. As far as investment is concerned, US invest around 15 percent of its GDP in the health care system whereas UK spends around 9 percent of its total GDP in the health care.

Access and Cost:

In United States, health care institutions are privately owned and the hospitals are managed by the private companies or the privately owned NGOs’. In order to get the health care services, 85 percent of the population of United States is dependent on the health care policies in which they have earlier invested out of their incomes. The remaining population of 15 percent have to pay the bills of the hospitals from their own pocket. However, for this 15 percent of population, paying the hefty bills of hospital become sometimes impossible and because of their financial situations they are indirectly not allowed to take the advantage of health care services in US.

In contrast to the US, hospitals in UK are mostly public owned properties and the residents are not required to pay the bills as some of them are covered in the insurance plans while the bills of the other uninsured population is highly subsidised by the government of UK and the charges to the patients who are admitted in the hospitals for some days do not go beyond $10.85 USD..

As far as the availability of care is concerned, the waiting time for the patients requiring emergency care is around 4 hours in UK hospitals for around 95 percent of cases which is certainly very high as compared to that of the US where the patients are required to wait for an average of 58 minutes to get the emergency care from the hospital. However, for getting the treatment from the primary care physician, an US patient has to wait for around several days ranging from 14 days to 29 days which is very longer as compared to that in UK where the patients has to wait for 12 days on an average which is more or less same with the situation in US.

Quality of Health care :

As far as quality of health care is concerned, UK strictly adheres to the guidelines of CARE set by the agency for health care research and quality. Whereas US does not strictly follows these guidelines. However the UK is having the less variation in the health outcomes as compared to that in the US.

Conclusion:

To conclude with, a research conducted for finding the quality and effectiveness of medical care provided to the patients in the various countries, US has been seen to be performing well as compared to the other countries. Moreover, in terms of the responsiveness given to the patients, US is way ahead of the UK as per the WHO guidelines. US is still focussing on its health care services being provided to its citizens by spending more on the health care through its unconstrained financial ability. Moreover US is having a large amount of resources to be spent on its health care services thus giving boost to the sector.