A Comparative Analysis of Healthcare Systems: USA, UK, Canada, Germany

This essay provides a comparative analysis of the healthcare systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany, focusing on their policies, funding mechanisms, and insurance facilities. It highlights that the USA's healthcare system is largely private, spending a significant portion of its GDP on health, while the UK's NHS is a public system funded mainly through national insurance and taxation. The essay also contrasts the insurance models, noting Canada's comprehensive coverage and Germany's compulsory, solidarity-based system. The conclusion emphasizes that while the USA's healthcare system is evolving, it still requires improvements to ensure complete coverage and benefit healthcare service users.

Running head: HEALTHCARE SYSTEM COMPARISON
HEALTHCARE SYSTEM COMPARISON
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1HEALTHCARE SYSTEM COMPARISON
Healthcare system in the United States of America is completely based on the private
sector and spends the highest amount of their budget in health sector than any other country
(Squires & Anderson, 2015). As per the healthcare reports of the USA, health sector contributes
with 16% in the country’s GDP (Karthikesalingam et al., 2014). However, to understand the
positive and negative aspects of the healthcare system of the USA, its system, insurance facilities
and their funding and policies should be properly compared and discussed.
The healthcare system of the United Kingdom is the world’s biggest public healthcare
system that uses the interim ethical framework so that decision making in the healthcare system
could be determined (NHS commissioning, 2019). Further, it should be mentioned that majority
of the healthcare related funding (98.8%) in NHS England comes from national insurance and
general taxation where as only 1.2% of the funding comes from patient charges
(kingsfund.org.uk, 2019). Compared to any other country in the world, healthcare in USA is
funded by health insurances such as Medicaid, Medicare, private health insurances and private
funding of healthcare users. However, universalization of UK healthcare system is more accurate
and as per the healthcare policies provided by NHS England, universalization of personalize care
will increase and help 2.5 million people worldwide, provided they are nationals of the United
Kingdom (National Insurance Conference of Canada, 2019). Further the general ethical policies
and principles are applied throughout the country so that standard operating procedure and the
legal statutory duties help each of the service users could be provided with fair and accurate
decision-making. Compared to the 64% of tax funded expenditure of USA healthcare system the
three stakeholders of this care system are federal, state and local healthcare service users (NHS
commissioning, 2019).

2HEALTHCARE SYSTEM COMPARISON
Beside funding and policies, health insurance is one of the important aspects of
healthcare system in the United States of America. However, the Medicare health insurance is
not free for everyone and it requires the service users to pay for several healthcare related aspects
so that complete healthcare facilities could be used by the public users of USA (Squires &
Anderson, 2015). Healthcare system of Canada and its insurance facilities are different from the
healthcare system of USA and the insurance provides coverage to complete healthcare facilities
such as medical prescription, drugs, care and others, besides these it negotiates with the
pharmaceutical companies at a federal level so that the patients could be provided with cheaper
and widely available medications for their healthcare (Coyte & McKeever, 2016). Besides that,
the USA healthcare system and the insurance facility also provide coverage to several life
threatening diseases and hence, the care process is limited in USA. However, the social safety
net is the aspect using which people who are not covered with the healthcare insurance, could be
provided with healthcare facilities and hence, provides healthcare service to people who are
unable to buy private health insurances or register themselves under Medicare (Squires &
Anderson, 2015).
However, if the healthcare insurance system of Germany is taken into consideration, then
it should be mentioned that there is a compulsory healthcare insurance available for the
population of Germany and it covers certain pre-selected benefits that are added by the
healthcare insurance companies so that people and their personal needs could be served (Busse &
Blümel, 2014). The healthcare system is based on the solidary system and the monthly premium
of the healthcare insurance is not determined by the age or gender of the population, but depends
on the salary of the individual (Germany Health Insurance System, 2019). Further, the premium
also paid by the employers and the calculation is determined by the pre-tax income of the person

3HEALTHCARE SYSTEM COMPARISON
associated with it. The benefit of this healthcare insurance system is its universal application and
usage in every health concern throughout the country and several other countries where the
insurance of German healthcare insurance is valid (Karthikesalingam et al., 2014). However, on
the other hand, the USA government and associated facilities are not compulsory and there is a
major percentage of the people who are still not covered with any public or private healthcare
insurance and hence, policy related to compulsion of health insurance should be made and highly
implemented throughout the United States of America (Squires & Anderson, 2015).
In conclusion, it could be said that the healthcare delivery system of United States of
America is changing rapidly and the government is focusing on implementation of public
funding with maximizing private funding facilities. The policies and funding process of
healthcare system in USA, compared to UK,, Canada and Germany is still developing with some
positive and negative aspects and requires complete coverage for the benefit of healthcare
service users in USA.

4HEALTHCARE SYSTEM COMPARISON
References
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Karthikesalingam, A., Holt, P. J., Vidal-Diez, A., Ozdemir, B. A., Poloniecki, J. D., Hinchliffe,
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kingsfund.org.uk. (2019). How the NHS is funded. Retrieved from
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/how-nhs-funded
National Insurance Conference of Canada. (2019). National Insurance Conference of Canada.
Retrieved from https://www.niccanada.com/Home.aspx
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