Flaws of US health care program USAs last health care policy had surfaced in 2010, when president Obama

had passed a health care bill. That health care bill and policy was a 5 year plan and will remain valid till 2015. It means that current health care system of USA is more or less the same as that of 2010. In the following lines Ill discuss the current US health care program briefly. The 2010 health care bill is also known as Affordable Care Act. This act has been implemented to a large extent but some parts of it still remain unimplemented as of now. According to this plan, the government requires a greater number of Americans to have got the insurance policy, than ever. This is a good plan to include those healthy people in the net who are confident of their long term health and havent got insurance policies so far. Theyll be funding those people this way that cant afford the coverage or are unable to pay for the insurance policy. This seems good only as long as we view it from the governments point of view. From the users end, it seems a policy made by some oppressor. Even some states of USA filed separate complaints against the Federal government. What makes it worse is the fact that although US government has provided some exceptions to this plan/ policy, if you dont belong to one of the groups to which the exceptions apply, you may have to pay a certain amount as fine or penalty. The following people are not obligated to buy an insurance policy:

Those with financial constraints Those who have not been uninsured, for a period exceeding three months Have some sort of religious objection on insurance schemes and policies Those who are undocumented immigrants

The financial torture doesnt end here. The amount which youll be obliged to pay will increase each year. For example, if a fine is imposed on you in 2014, youll pay whichever of 95$ or 1% of your total taxable income is greater. In the next year, i.e. in the year 2015 youll have to pay whichever of 325$ or 2 % of your total taxable income is greater. In 2016, youll have to pay whichever of 695$ or 2.5% of your taxable income, is greater. From that point onwards, government will refigure the amount of fine based on your standard of living and cost of living etc. Now let us discuss some general aspects of USAs health care system. In USAs health care system, health care facilities are mostly possessed and operated by private sector businesses. This doesnt mean that state has nothing to do with the health care. States and Federal government do possess certain health care facilities as well. Majority of the health care provisions and spending come from some big programs like Medicare, Medicaid etc. Medicare primarily insures the people who are older than 65 years. People, who are younger than 65 years, are either insured by their employers or by the employer of some of their family member.

A study which was carried out recently revealed that 30% of the total expenses done on health care by Americans go wasted. The sum of wasted amount mounts to approximately 570 billion $. To give you an illustration that how big this amount is actually, let me tell you that the defense budget of USA for 2014, which was prepared by Pentagon was nearly 527 billion $. So this means that an amount bigger than our defense budget is being wasted through our expenses on health care. There are many sinks through which these dollars are seeping through. Some of these sinks are unnecessary services, prevention failures, very high and excessive administrative costs, prevention failures and frauds etc. Apart from these reasons of wastage of health care spending, wastage can be seen from another perspective and that is high expenditures on health care. It has been reported by many sources that doctors and hospitals charge more for their services and since the most of the health care facilities i.e. hospitals etc. are not owned by government, it is quite difficult to put some sort of transparency check on them and they make full use of this thing. Let me add something to your worries and that is another fact. The fact is that nearly one out of four beneficiaries of Medicare program, which is the largest insurance program going inside USA, when get admitted at hospitals as a part of their insurance policy, suffer some sort of harm during their stay at the hospitals. Isnt that a shocking figure? Will you still prefer to get an insurance policy from the afore-mentioned insurance company?

What US healthcare system needs is some sort of transparency in private health care facilities such as hospitals, clinics etc. Not only this, but there must be some sort of policy statement of both government hospitals as well as private ones. It should be ensured that the insured people dont get any harm during their stay at hospitals. If any citizen gets some sort of harm during his stay at hospital, he should be paid the compensation and those responsible for the harm must be punished according to the magnitude and nature of the harm. If a doctor commits some sort of negligence, he must be taught a lesson as well. The least which can be done to teach a lesson to a negligent doctor is to fine him or suspend his practice license for a small period of time. Us government should ensure that there are no expenses in the lieu of unnecessary administrative costs. Audits of hospitals should be done quite minutely. The insurance companies such as Medicare etc. need to make their conditions and criteria better. If they succeed in doing so, the reduction in the expenses in lieu of unnecessary services can be made and it will make a big difference. Another thing which US govt. can do and which is likely to come under the attack from critics is the provision of age based health care rationing at some level or other. The purpose is to provide younger people with more opportunities and facilities of health care at low/ discounted rates or even free, partially or completely, than the people belonging to older age groups. These were few of the flaws in US health care system along with a few solutions.

References
Bentley, T. G., Effros, R. M., Palar, K., & Keeler, E. B. (2008). Waste in the US health care system: a conceptual framework. Milbank Quarterly, 86(4), 629-659.

Time Magazine July 1, 2013.

Woolhandler, S., & Himmelstein, D. U. (1991). The deteriorating administrative efficiency of the US health care system. New England Journal of Medicine,324(18), 1253-1258.

CNN Money April 10, 2013.