Question

Please discuss one U.S. or global challenge to the public healthcare system and any policies currently proposed to address that challenge.

Answer 1

Answer: One major challenge faced by the U.S health care system is the rising cost of the health care. In the past the costs of health care in U.S has increased so much because of the high costs of the prescription medicines and diagnostic tests , the healthcare is becoming illusive for certain section of society. The government has been reluctant on taking steps like central planning and similar measures for taking care of this issue. U.S spends more per capita on health care expenditures as compared to any other country in the world and still lags behind on many health indicators like infant mortality and life expectancy from other countries. Hence improving the quality of health care services and reducing the costs is a major issue faced by the health care sector in the U.S.   For dealing with these issues there are many policy reforms that have been proposed. It is proposed that government needs to intervene in the rising prices of prescription drugs and develop a central control system over the health care. The health care planning and management should be done at the central level. The benefits of patents should be reduced and use of generic drugs should be promoted for dealing with the rising costs of the healthcare.