Health Care

A few days ago, I watched an episode of Frontline on PBS called "Sick Around the World." It was about health care. The host traveled to the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland to study their health care systems. It was so interesting and I think America could learn a lot from looking at other countries.

United Kingdom has what we call socialized medicine. Some people do complain about long waits and limited choices, but the citizens are happy for the most part. Hospitals are all owned by the government, and doctors are salaried employees. They do pay higher taxes, but the country as a whole pays only 8.3% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for health care.

Japan requires all of their citizens to have insurance, either through their employer or a community plan. Lower income people do receive assistance to pay for health care. The country pays 8% of their GDP into health care. They keep costs down; in fact, some hospitals are in the red because of fixed low prices.

Germany was the first country to require all their citizens to have insurance. All insurance companies are non-profit and have to compete for business. They spend 10.7%. The richest 10% in the country are allowed to opt out of the public insurance and pay for insurance from for profit companies.

Taiwan studied other countries' systems. Like Japan and Germany, all citizens must have insurance, but there is only one, government-run insurer. Because there is only one insurer, their system has the lowest administrative costs in the world. They only spend 6.3% of the GDP into health care.

Switzerland is like Japan and Germany, but it is the second most expensive system, behind the U.S. They spend 11.6% on health care.

I think America needs to do something. I don't claim to know what the best thing to do is, but I can see some possible changes.

-None of the countries have medical bankruptcy. I think America needs to get rid of this. No one should have to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills.
-Most of the countries have fixed prices for procedures. I think it would save citizens time and worry.

It's a hard situation. Adam and I didn't have health care for the first few years we were married. We were very lucky that nothing ever happened. We do have insirance now, through my job, but since I only work part-time, we have to pay almost $300 a month for both medical and dental.