Healthcare Determinants in the United States

This assignment examines the unique characteristics of the US healthcare system, focusing on how standards of care are determined and their impact on health outcomes. It compares US spending and health indicators with other OECD countries, highlighting disparities and the influence of the Affordable Care Act. The paper also explores the role of various organizations in shaping healthcare policies and emphasizes the importance of developing effective policies for risk management, quality improvement, and equitable access to care.

Running head: DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
The US healthcare system is unique amongst the other industrialized countries. They do
not have any universal Medicare system, until the recent enacted legislation that started health
care coverage for everyone. The U.S health care system can be termed as a hybrid system (Shi &
Singh, 2015). It has been reported that 48% of the US healthcare system comes from the private
funds. 20% comes from the households and 28% comes from the private businesses (Shi &
Singh, 2015).
This paper will focus on how the standards of care are determined in US. It will also discuss how
the standards will help to improve the health outcomes in our organization. In comparison with
the other OECD COUNTRIES, the per capita spending on health care in US is much greater
(Squires & Anderson, 2015). Therefore this paper focuses on the health care determinants of US
and would propose the different policies and regulations that have tried to mitigate the high
health costs and the disparities in the insurance system of the country (Squires & Anderson,
2015). It should be noted that out of the 17 high incomed countries the US have a high
prevalence of obesity, adolescent pregnancies, cardiac and respiratory diseases, infant mortality,
sexually transmitted diseases and many more (Squires & Anderson, 2015).
Debates exists that the system is not able to deliver proper healthcare equivalent to the money
spent. It has been reported that lack of health insurance system in the United States brings about
18000 unnecessary deaths in US (Woolhandler & Himmelstein, 2012). There is no facilities of
government owned Medicare system, but there are certain hospitals that are owned by the local
government.

2DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
One of the main findings of the research is that there is a large gap between the care people
actually get and the standard of care they should actually receive.
Among the different healthcare policies in US, the implementation of the Affordable care act
have had a profound effect on the us healthcare system in terms of insurance, finances and
clinical aspects of medical practice (Sommers et al., 2015). This healthcare policy focused on
increasing the affordability of healthcare without sacrificing the quality of care. The ACA had
been the most monumental change in the US healthcare (Sommers et al., 2015).
The primary goal of the legislation was to bring a large population under the health coverage, to
curtail the health costs, improvement in the quality of care. Some of the organizations that have
influenced the health care policies are the AFL CIO, American medical association, the
American association of retired persons and insurance companies like and Kaiser Permanente
(Squires & Anderson, 2015). The social security act had introduced Medicare to give overall
health coverage to the public.
As a healthcare organizer I should be sure that the health care policies in my organization will be
able to prevent the chaos, confusion and the legal problems (Shi & Singh, 2015). The policies
would help the employees to understand their responsibilities and roles in the organization. The
health policy in my organization should ensure a safe quality care. The health policies will be
able to establish the high levels of cooperation, understanding, efficiencies and unity between the
employees.
Continuous quality assessment and the risk management techniques of the organization would be
helpful for the organization to mitigate the various sentinel events. Additionally, good

3DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
management systems should be present in an organization to keep the policies and the
regulations updated.
Thus it can be said that development of policies involving risk management, quality
improvement and provision of equal care to every people irrespective of the socio-economic
status can help in the development of a better landscape of the health care delivery.

4DETERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE IN UNITED STATES
References
Shi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2015). Essentials of the US health care system. Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
Sommers, B. D., Gunja, M. Z., Finegold, K., & Musco, T. (2015). Changes in self-reported
insurance coverage, access to care, and health under the Affordable Care Act. Jama,
314(4), 366-374.
Squires, D., & Anderson, C. (2015). US health care from a global perspective: spending, use of
services, prices, and health in 13 countries. The Commonwealth Fund, 15, 1-16.
Woolhandler, S., & Himmelstein, D. U. (2012). The deteriorating administrative efficiency of
the US health care system. New England Journal of Medicine, 324(18), 1253-1258.