Healthcare is an essential part of every person’s life regardless of their social status or health condition. However, it is not available financially for many people because of ever-increasing medical service prices. This issue is the most pertinent because it directly affects people’s ability to maintain their health. The global changes in this question can increase the rate of healthy Americans and transform the way the system of healthcare works. It is clear that American healthcare is one of the most expensive worldwide. However, the country’s population is one of the most unhealthy ones in the world. About fifty percent of American “adults say they have difficulty affording health care costs” (Montero et al., 2022, para 2). While in 2017, the United States government spent on health care three times more than on education, it has a “lower life expectancy than other wealthy countries but vastly higher expenditures per person” (Case et al., 2020, para 3). That means the budget does not fit the system even though it is significantly larger than other countries resources.
There are internal (donors, volunteers) and external stakeholders, such as insurance companies, patients, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical companies. Some stakeholders profit from price increases, such as companies that provide services or products, while others lose money because they need to pay more for healthcare. There are multiple reasons for such a tendency, including inflation, equipment updating, a less healthy population, and the fact that “medical providers are paid for quantity, not quality” (Walker, 2022, para 4). All these reasons are also barriers for this issue to change. The only way for this aspect to change is for the government to change its approach. American medical care improves every year, but the majority of people have trouble affording the service the country provides.
References
Case, A. & Deaton, A. (2020). How healthcare costs hurt American workers and benefit the wealthy. Time. Web.
Montero, A., Kearney, A., Hamel, L. & Brodie, M. (2022). Americans’ challenges with health care costs. KFF. Web.
Walker, E. (2022). Eight reasons for rising healthcare costs. People keep. Web.