Health Care Delivery and Reform

This paper compares and contrasts the different health systems of Australia, United Kingdom and United States. It discusses the structure, function, stakeholders, and co-payment policy of the Australian health system, as well as the differences between the UK and Australia health systems.

Running head: HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REFORM 1
Health care delivery and reform
Student’s name
Instructor’s name
Institution of affiliation
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HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REFORM 2
Healthcare delivery and reform
Introduction
Health is a term that denotes the state of being free from illness and experiencing good
conditions physically, mentally and socially. All the biological systems are capable of acquiring,
converting, allocating, distributing and utilizing energy with maximum efficiency. Health care on
the other hand is the management and handling well the health in humankind via protection ,
finding out, medication of the illness, infections, injuries, and any other physical and mental
problems in individuals(Notoatmodjo et al, 2018). The organization responsible for provision of
the health is known as health system which aims at delivering effective services in order to meet
the health need of target groups (Zhao et al, 2017). This paper will give a detailed report
comparing and contrasting the different health systems of Australia, United Kingdom and United
states.
The health system in Australia
To start with is the Australian health system. The health care system of the Australia is known as
Medicare (medical care).Medicare was introduced in 1984 with an aim of helping citizens to
access free treatment in public hospitals as well as giving subsidy to medical services
(Shephard, 2018) . Medicare provides access to multiple of medical services and on top low cost
medications. Medicare gets financial aid from commonwealth health insurance organization is in
a position to provide health care to the citizens without charging for the services as well as low
cost health services to all citizens of Australia. The delivery of healthcare services is as a result
of the Australian health care agreements (Chambers et al, 2011).

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Structure of the health system in Australia
On the side of the structure of the Australia health care system it has got several essential types
such as primary health care which general entails the first encounter of the patient with health
care system. It deals with care that does not necessarily involve treatment instead it consist of a
range of practices like making health efficient, protection, dealing with early infections that has
not advanced, medication of acute predicaments, and maintenance of chronic states. It has got
different categories of services it delivers ranging from prevention to health promotion activities
(Guajardo et al, 2018). Early health care is availed in a different categories such as general
practices where the individual seek treatment of less serious diseases, also in health centers
which are mostly located within the community to enable the individuals to easily access the
centers. In addition is also online consultations via programs known as communication
technology where videos are sent and people can follow the guidelines in them. Different
healthcare services are conducted by professionals like nurses who mostly take part in
monitoring the patient in hospitals. Dentist on the other hand deals with tooth problems and
giving education on how to take care of the tooth.
Another branch that has the mandate to offer health care is primary health networks which work
together with other primary health care providers. It aims at improving the efficiency as well as
the effectiveness of the medical services provided to the patients. Others include the secondary
health services, hospitals and also local hospital networks (Watts et al, 2018). Australia
experience an efficient health care from Medicare system providing merit to all population
groups. Research shows that health system of Australia emphasizes more on prevention which is
widely viewed as a good action that should be adopted by Australian citizens. It helps to shun the

HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REFORM 4
infections before they get attack to a person. Taking measures that assist in evading diseases is a
beneficial way to minimize funds spending in provision of medical care. In Freeman’s theory of
prevention he argues that prevention policy is the best option.
Function of Medicare in Australia in provision of health care
Medicare focuses on providing uniform health coverage for both permanent residents and
Australian citizens. Since it receives funding from the government there is a proposal from the
government of establishing a co-payment policy that requires the individuals to pay for the
services they are given (Reddel et al, 2018). Initially Medicare offered a free medical care to all
individuals within the Australia. All sorts of treatment are found in Medicare system and
therefore it needs money for both research and for paying the doctors who work in the hospitals
(Frank et al, 2017).Private hospital also exists and provides health care too on the basis of
payment of the service offered.
Co-payment policy in Australia
Government come up with a co-payment policy in the year 2014-2015 (Jacups, et al, 2018). The
policy was ridiculed and had a lot of mockery from various groups. However, government had
put forward the co-payment policy in order to make good grounds for Medicare system and
provide full support to make it sustainable as well as have better management. Co-payment
policy also aimed at saving the funds from the government so that health system can keep
running in an economical way (Liu et al, 2018). The policy aimed at increasing income for
doctor which could otherwise enhance retaining of doctor within Australia and hence minimize
the unnecessary visit to doctors outside Australia (Wineinger, et al, 2018). Both time and
resources may go onto waste in the process.

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Health minister Peter Dutton said that the payment is a step towards better future of health in
Australia. Since GP co-payment money would go to the research in the medicine, world class
universities as well as institutions dealing with health system, it will help in navigating forward
from generation to another (Eckermann & Sheridan, 2016). The co-payment policy could affect
the patient who do not have money from seeking medical care as a result of increased cost of
visiting doctors. Majority who are affected are those with chronic diseases like diabetes both
type 1 and type 11,high blood pressure, heart diseases as well as AIDS who require regular
checkup from the doctor (Nunes et al, 2017). Older people, retired ones, pensioners, and families
having young kids are also affected. Most of the people therefore cannot access the health care
facilities due to differences in the amount of income the populations have (Frank, 2017).
Stakeholders of health system in Australia
The primary stakeholders of the health care systems is the Australian government. Other
stakeholders includes former Tony Abbott who was the former prime minister, Peter Dutton one
who formally was in charge of health as a minister, the Medicare which is the main arm of health
system in Australia and federal government. The other groups which did not take part in the
establishment of the policy who were profoundly touched by outcome strongly disagreed with
the policy proposal. They include individual who are self-employed in the ministry of health,
some organization like medical association, doctors and many others (Miller et al, 2017).
The co-payment policy refinement and modification.
The policy refinement shows that politics plays a vital role in strategizing a policy. It shows that
the number opponents of proposal exceeds that of supporters. All groups gave enough reasons to
explain positive solutions meet to address the problem. The evidence are as follows: the (Seaman

HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REFORM 6
et al, 2017) establishment of co-payment could help to save government’s funds around $750
million in one year. The introduction of chargers on the healthcare services who motivate the
citizens to value the services they get much.
The policy was later reframed by the interests groups and lobbying parties who focuses on
interest and ideas. The aim was to make it affordable price so that everyone can get the health
services. Poor people and families as well as old people can receive care that they need
(Voorham, 2017). The health reforms shows that there will be a continuous increase of the
pricing in health system from year after another. It framed as a barrier to prevent the people with
minor problems from accessing the services since they are aware of the charges.
The capable competing issues, interest as well as power differences emerge as the ideas of the
introducing payment were jotted down in the records of the year 2014-25 by former health
minister who did not conduct any debates or consultations with the industry in health sector
(Stenbacka & Tombak, 2018). The health professionals complained about the idea and claimed
that the plan may disadvantage them from dealing with the patient leading to loss of money.
Another issue from doctors was that some individuals within the population will struggle a lot to
pay the money which could create a barrier to access the primary care. As a result the number of
patient would stay away. Recently, Australia experiences an efficient health care from Medicare
system providing merit to all individual within the population. The policy underwent
modification which involves looking at all specific individual in a different perspective when
asking for payment of the service provided by the doctors (Glick et al, 2017). The modified
proposal had features like excluding the less fortunate groups in the population from paying for
the services of health, also no fee charges on the side of other services and giving option to the

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healthcare providers to charge funds according to their perception and decision (Bastos et al,
2017).
Differences between United Kingdom and Australia
The difference between Australia and the United Kingdom (U.K) is that in U.K National Health
Service (NHS) in charge of monitoring the health system does not impose charges upon
prescription of medicine charges and every prescription filled is charged about £8.20. However
not all citizens in U.K pays the prescription fee because they are excluded. In addition groups of
individuals who require continuous medication are have a chance to purchase a pre-payment card
which is valid either per year or in three months depending on the amount. Research reveals that
United States has the highest cost of Health care as in relative to Australia and U.K. Several
factors as to way there is rise in cost is the services provided are very expensive since they
require a lot of funds to avail them. This consist of equipment for carrying out tests in the
laboratory, the funds to pay the doctors who work in the health system, purchasing the hospital
beds to be used by patient who get admission, machines to carry out x-ray tests for the patient
with much complications. Another factor is increasing number of tests to be done like the scans
as well as surgeries where organs need replacement in the patient’s body. Reluctant of the nation
in controlling the increasing costs of private insurance contributes a lot in making the cost of
health care to rise each and every time. In addition is that the administrative spends a lot of funds
in performing it duty which ends up rising the cost even more.
Health system in United Kingdom

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In United Kingdom the health system is a universal government sponsored system known as
National Health Service (NHS). The National Health Service involves several categories of
health care systems that are financially aided by the public in United Kingdom. The National
Health Service branches are It includes are located various places like Scotland, England, Wales
and in Northern Ireland known as health social care. The United Kingdom delivers healthcare to
citizens in public manner to all individuals who reside there permanently a population of ranging
between 57 to58 million people (Hignett et al, 2018). The health care services are not at the point
of demand instead are catered for by the taxes that are made by general individual. Research
shows that 18 percent of the income earned by the citizens is utilized in the health care system.
The overall income of the United Kingdom is utilized on healthcare (Thompson et al, 2002). The
private sector of the healthcare in United Kingdom is still growing and it is very small in relative
to the public healthcare sector.
Brief history of United Kingdom health system and its structure.
The National healthcare system of UK was established in 1946 and is the one mandated to
monitor the operations of the healthcare. Initially, healthcare in the UK could only be accessed
by the well to do individuals since they could afford to pay for the service. The rest could only
obtain medication if they visited teaching hospitals or through the people who do charity work.
Afterword someone by the name David George established insurance ideal where he individuals
could make payment of their healthcare service coming from their salaries. This was in the year
1911, the act was known as National Insurance. The act required that small amount of the
employee’s salary was deducted and could be used to ensure them offer them a free healthcare
(Ko et al, 2018). The scheme delivered the healthcare insurance only to the working class
individual who were mostly in white collar jobs. As a result, an effort was made to come up with

HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REFORM 9
a solution of the problem and as a matter of fact the public healthcare system was established. It
entitled every citizen to get free medical services whenever they were in need. The finance for
aiding the running of the program was acquired from imposing taxation to every citizen therefore
each individual was responsible for care.
The later years saw reorganization of the management and in the year 1990 an anther acts were
passed which include community care act as well as the National Health Service. The law come
up with hospital care that was controlled by independent managers who were trusted. Several
changes have taken place form the period of the government of Blair involving the establishment
of NHS Direct. The NHS Direct focus on improving healthcare system and low the cost and
waiting times. Some changes in NHS involve discarding of the recent government operation
strategy which would put around 30000 individuals who work in the administration to lose their
jobs. Besides, about 80% of the NHS plan of the spending handed over to the health
professionals to monitor the usage (Hiam &Dorling, 2018). The aim of this reform is to motivate
the private sector to grow faster in order to give the citizens a wide range of choices to the
patients.
Functions of United Kingdom Health System.
Major function of the UK health system is to emphasis on the built-up environment, where more
significant levels of deficiency, deprived health, communal need and inadequate can occur.
However pastoral communities regularly catch the affluent and humble living in proximity to
one another. Municipal health seem to be poorer than that of other rustic areas but there is an
exception towards that rule (Pickup et al, 2018). Data collected about the quality of care in UK
suggest that facility accessibility is a dominant delinquent and bucolic populations have pitiable
access as equated to other communities.

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The department of health in UK is liable for cultivating the fitness and wellbeing of the
individuals. Its website provides up-to-date on the branch work, pamphlets as well as social care
guidance as sound as policy and health. In general, the UK has a superiority and upshot structure,
which estimates the excellence of care delivered by broad consultants. This framework affords
information for civilizing the eminence and ranked contingent on the view from patient and also
on how it is being carried out when delivering the services to the individuals (Kolawa et al,
2017). The demerit of government participation in the role of healthcare provision deteriorates
the functionality of the arcade mechanisms. Also, constricted governor done in esteems to
medical expense results in deficiency of remedial resources, like harbors in civic clinics and
doctors.
Health system in United States and comparison with UK and Australia.
The United States healthcare system is unique among all other developed industrialized countries
in that it lacks a uniform health system. In contrary to UK and Australia which offers a universal
health care to all the citizen, it has no universal health care coverage for almost everyone. The
US health scheme can be explained as a mixture organization. In the year 2014 about 48% of the
U.S healthcare expenditure was after the cloistered capitals having 28 percent impending from
ménages and 20 percent from sequestered corporate (Winer et al, 2018). The federal government
accounted for around 28% of the budget while state and local government accounted for about
17%. Mostly the heath care even the ones that are publicly funded is delivered privately.
Disparity of US with UK and Australia.
The significant disparity of the U.S from other industrialized nations like Australia is the high
health care cost and differences in insurance coverage. There exist several types of insurance

HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REFORM 11
offered by the U.S like private health insurance plan that has 66% of the workers. Out of the total
population of 283.2 million people in the U.S, 115.4 million are insured by the health care and
36.5% of the populace gets treatment via the U.S régime over Medicare, Medicaid and experts’
management or any other martial care (Lindquist, 2018). The individual can be covered by more
than one government plan. Research shows that around 32.9 million of people are had no health
insurance. The major programs that government uses to fund the health system are the Children’s
Health Insurance program, Medicare, Medicaid as well as Veterans Health Administration.
In a research that compares the seven most commercial countries United Kingdom was graded to
be the second while United States simultaneously floundered in most areas of health care in
comparison to supplementary nations. The U.S health care is the utmost affluent in relative to
Australia and U.K and at large the whole world. Another disparity in health system of the U.S is
that it is the only country that lacks a universal health insurance system as opposed to the
Australia and U.K as well. The most vital issue to note about U.S is that it is the last in terms of
efficiency, patient safety, access, coordination and equality contrary to want happens in Australia
and U.K. As a result U.S ends up having the greatest health care spending in the world. By
contrast the U.K spend about only 8% of its gross domestic products on health care as the U.S
spends around 15% of its gross domestic products annually. As the U.S covers around 28% of its
total population the U.K and Australia covers 100% of the total population in their nation.
Similarly, US healthcare gangs stage and revenue necessities (Medicaid or Medicare) on public
healthcare coverage, while UK and Australia made public health care accessible to all permanent
residents by making it free at the point of needs of the target individuals (Schneider, 2018).
Problems experience in United States Health system.

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One uniform theme that generally affects the US health care system appears to be absence of
adequate ruling on the levies that clinics, specialists, medicinal companies and coverage
companies can charge for amenities and prescriptions. For instance, the identical function is
habitually allocated at massively varying extents subject on what level of assurance a patient has.
This variation in valuing for amenities motivates overrating. The stubbornness popular to USA to
partake strong ruling on health care expenditures is much more comprehensible in a nation that is
concentrates on discrete liberty of choice, slight administration and stumpy levy, but it is
economically untenable. Tight rule mechanism of healthcare has evidently offered same or
superior eminence healthcare many other republics at almost partial the charge or even fewer,
nevertheless this look as if it is administratively opposed in the US.
Merits of US health system over UK and Australia.
US has got certain merits over UK when it emanates to the sequestered healthcare division. For
example, the UK tolls 40% advanced than the UK in ratio of males and females who persisted a
tumor five years after verdict. Besides, US also grades upper in proportion of patients spotted
with diabetes who received suppositories around six months (Ginter, 2018). The figure of US
patients who gets sensible dealing for diabetes was superfluous 6 stints that of the UK and
twofold that of Australia. Correspondingly, the fraction of US elders’ terrible treatment and
replacement within six months of identification of requisite is significant than six stretches that
of UK and double that of Australia. As a final point, the three nation U.K, U.S, and Australia
have very good health systems even though they are differing in one way or another, they all
have in common the role of providing health services to their citizens.

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