In any country, health care must be financed, organized, and delivered to the citizens in a specific way. The healthcare system may include distinct methodologies in which issues of access, expenditure, and resources can be leveraged. In the United States (US), there is no defined healthcare system since the services are provided by the public and private sectors. Great Britain (GB) has a healthcare system that is state-funded and it is referred to as National Health Service (NHS). This paper compares the US healthcare system with that of GB.
Access to healthcare is an issue that the paper focuses on. A significant number of US children have benefited through a variety of health programs. For instance, there are approximately 78 million children in the US and more than 90% are under health insurance programs such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance, and employer-sponsored insurance (Boucher & Jordan, 2019). In the US, unemployed people access affordable healthcare plans using Marketplace but they have to save some cash based on income and household level. For retirees, Medicare pays benefits if one is eligible for social security, in GB, retired people access their healthcare through the Basic State Pension under the GB retirement system (Katz & Gupta, 2021). Most children in GB used NHS to get health coverage while the unemployed benefit from the Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
There are specific ways in which health insurance is covered in the US and the GB. In the US, patients are covered for medication through employer-sponsored health insurance, exchange programs for healthcare, and Medicare. In GB, medication is covered by NHS under the UHC where the government subsidizes costs to significant levels (Boucher & Jordan, 2019). In the process to see a medical specialist in the US, knowing the kind of insurance plan that an employed person has enabled them to gather the correct documents such as the insurance card and the name of the existing plan. For self-sponsored groups, verification of the health insurance coverage is needed to ascertain the credibility before seeing the specialist (Cohen & Graver, 2019). In both cases, scheduling of an appointment ensues where the person arranges with the specialist when to attend to the appointment. In Great Britain, one has to visit a primary care physician, and there follows verification of insurance and referral data before making an appointment with the health specialist (Katz & Gupta, 2021). In the United States, the current law prohibits health insurance companies from refusing to cove patients who have pre-existing health conditions. However, that has been implemented in Colorado, Virginia, Massachusetts, and other 20 states and the rest have yet to execute the pre-existing condition laws (Boucher & Jordan, 2019). In Great Britain, pre-existing conditions are not covered in the health insurance more so if it was diagnosed more than five years before the start of the new health coverage.
The citizens in the GB and the US have been impacted by the prevailing healthcare systems in their countries. The financial implications for the healthcare system in the US have led to reduced costs of buying drugs for patients who have frequent visits to pharmaceutical outlets. Therefore, it means that most people can afford to pay for other basic bills such as food, education, and clothing (Katz & Gupta, 2021). In Great Britain, patients have expressed mixed financial impacts since the government has not covered their pre-existing conditions and there are many people unemployed who need healthcare coverage (Boucher & Jordan, 2019). The only group benefiting highly includes the civil servants and those with higher income compared to the rest.
The Healthcare system in the US is provided by both private and public sectors, unlike the GB where there is a single state-funded system known as NHS. In the US, there are programs such as Medicare and Medicaid which are meant to help the unemployed, children and retirees. In GB, health insurance is major benefits people with higher income because some covers are only for employed people. Under UHS, the GB citizens can get subsidized drugs from healthcare institutions and pharmaceutical companies.
References
Boucher, D., & Jordan, D. (2019). US healthcare international comparisons: What are we comparing. International Journal of Healthcare Policy, 1(1), 89. Web.
Katz, D., & Gupta, R. (2021). Delivering clinical research: the UK healthcare system needs a culture that supports research. BMJ, 6(5), n1140. Web.
Cohen, I., & Graver, H. (2019). A Doctor’s Touch: What Big Data in Health Care Can Teach Us About Predictive Policing. SSRN Electronic Journal, 11(8), 3-7. Web.