Healthcare Systems in the UK and US

Compare and contrast between UK and US in the healthcare system.

The healthcare system is designed for meeting the healthcare requirement of target population of the country so that they can live a healthy and stress-free life. In the system, the policies and regulations of healthcare to be developed by the country require to be made by considering the best interest of the population. This is required so that it helps in promoting proper awareness regarding major health issues and ways to manage them among the individuals. In this respect, different countries have constructed their healthcare system accordingly. Thus, in this essay, the healthcare system of the UK and US are to be compared and contrasted to understand the way each of them has developed their healthcare system to support the population.

In the UK, the healthcare system is a develop matter with Netherlands, England, North Ireland, Wales and Scotland, where each of them has separately funded public healthcare which is funded by and are accountable to separate parliaments and governments (Waterson, 2014). However, despite having separate health care services in the UK, the National Health Services work across the UK with the purpose of providing funding for the health care services so that all the citizens irrespective of their financial condition is able to access healthcare (NHS, 2018). The funding is mainly received from the taxes collected by the government from the public. Thus, the UK healthcare system is mostly state-funded with partial availability of private funded organisation. This means that while accessing healthcare in the UK most part of the healthcare expenditure for the population is supported by the government with few requirements of private funds.

In comparison to the UK, in the US, the health care system is entirely privately funded where the facilities of healthcare are mainly owned and operated by the private sector businesses. According to statistics, 58% of the US community hospitals are non-profitable with only 21% hospital being government owned and 21% being used for for-profit healthcare facility (www.aha.org, 2018). Thus, the US healthcare system requires the population to personally bear the expenses of their healthcare with less or any support from the government. The US is though at the top of the economic power but still it lacks universal health care coverage like other nations such as the UK. In 2014, the report published by the Commonwealth Fund regarding 11 countries, the UK is reported to have best healthcare system in regard to care quality, efficiency, access, indicator of healthy lives and equity with the US being reported to be at the bottom (www.commonwealthfund.org, 2014).

In the US, there is no nationwide system of medical facilities being owned by the government which are open to general public but there are few local government-owned medical facilities which are available for the general individuals (Burwell, 2015). This has led to the high cost of health care in the US which is often could not be covered by poor individuals. As a result, the poor class of the society in the US are often deprived of basic healthcare facilities as they cannot bear the huge healthcare expenses. Moreover, working individuals in the US to control some of the expenses in healthcare are seen to opt for healthcare insurances to lower their health care expenses to some extent (Squires and Anderson, 2015). Further, in the US, the federal Veterans Health Administration though operates VA hospitals but they are only open for the veterans and the veterans are charged for services regarding health conditions which they did not receive while offering their services in the military (www.legion.org, 2015). Thus, in the US, no form of health care is free or government funded and most of the expenses are to be taken by individuals on their economic ability to access healthcare services.

The healthcare scenario is however widely different in the UK in comparison the US where mostly it is government funded. This is evident as in the UK, there is a centralised healthcare system being run by the government as the National Healthcare Services (NHS) who ensures that the right to access healthcare facility is available for all individuals irrespective of their financial and social conditions (NHS, 2018). The NHS is committed in the UK to design each policy as well as control operations regarding healthcare services for all. They provide funding due to which poor and lower class individuals in the UK can access free health care services (www.england.nhs.uk, 2018). In 2016, it is reported that the total government financed healthcare expenditure was 79.4% of the entire spending on health care in the year (www.ons.gov.uk, 2016). This informs that the UK government spends considerable amount of money to support the population to have increased facility of health care services without fail. Moreover, the veterans and military personnel are provided free healthcare by the NHS in the UK and are not charged like in the US. The market for health insurance is considerably low in the UK in comparison to the US as a result of presence of government aids and controls for healthcare in the UK.

In the UK, the NHS standards for healthcare are set by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) who has worked out standards as well as guidelines to be followed for variety of alignments (NICE, 2018). However, no such body exists in the US for setting the standards but the government plays an active role to keep an eye on the healthcare standards being met effectively by the private organisation while providing care services (Goran et al. 2012). Thus, it can be seen that a separate body exists for the UK healthcare system to look after the healthcare standards whereas the US system is mainly operated on the set standards by the government with no separate body to look over them. In the UK, the average wait time for emergency response is seen to be four hours for 95% of the patients (www.theguardian.com, 2015). However, in the US the average response time for ER is three hours (Wachs et al. 2016). Thus, it can be understood that the US healthcare system has more effective and quick response rate for availing patients with emergency care than the UK.

In 2016, it is reported that in the UK a total of 9.7% of the GDP is spent in respect to healthcare treatment funded by the private for the individuals with comparison to the US who spends 17.2% of their GDP (www.bbc.com, 2018). This further proves that the privately funded healthcare institutions are more in number in the US healthcare system in comparison to the UK healthcare system. The pounds per head expenditure indicates that in the UK for each person 2,920 is spent on health care in comparison to the US who spends 7.617 per person as reported in 2016 (www.ons.gov.uk, 2016; www.cms.gov, 2016). Thus, it can be seen that the UK healthcare system is more economic in nature and nearly requires half expenditure by the individuals to access healthcare services in comparison to the US where the healthcare cost is high. In 2014, it is reported that the average life expectancy at birth is 78.8 at birth in the US and 81.4 in the UK (www.ons.gov.uk, 2016; www.cms.gov, 2016). Further, even after many changes in the US healthcare system, there are 28 million individuals who are not supported by any form of public or private health insurance to access healthcare (www.ons.gov.uk, 2016; www.cms.gov, 2016). Thus, the fact informs that UK healthcare is stronger in respect to US healthcare system in offering health care coverage to individuals and to allow the public experience effective care services.

In the UK healthcare system, since profit is not the key focus of the NHS thus Pareto optimality may not exist. As per Malik et al. (2015), Pareto optimality is referred to the state of resource allocation in which it is though done in an effective manner but it does not imply fairness or equality as resource allocation is done in a profit-oriented way. Thus, in UK Healthcare system fair system of resource allocation exist in which all the individuals are to get equal care without partiality. As asserted by Keehan et al. (2015), in publicly funded health care system the doctors are seen to be motivated for drawing in profit for the healthcare organisations. This is because by acting on deriving best economic interest of the company leads them to receive better remuneration by the organisation. Thus, the focus is more on the better performance of the organisation rather than the patients while deciding ways for patient’s treatment by the doctors in the public healthcare system. This often results in neglecting the actual care requirement and increased healthcare cost for the patient. As argued by Luengo-Fernandez et al. (2015), in healthcare, the health performance of the patient is required to be key focus rather than the benefit of the organisation. In UK healthcare system thus they have this advantage in this respect as they are mostly government aided and therefore their focus is more patient-centric rather than profit ended as they are not profit oriented.

The UK healthcare system with the presence of government funds and aids along with a centralised body to look after the healthcare standards has the advantage that they are unaffected by market failure. As mentioned by Stiglitz and Rosengard (2015), market failure often leads to increased cost of goods and services. This is because market failure leads the business organisation and others to experience economic failure as result they increase the price of goods and services to overcome the financial constraints. Since the UK healthcare system is government funded and is not operated by the public organisation thus market failure has no adverse effect on raising the costs of healthcare in any way. However, US healthcare system is entirely privatised thus market failure is going to act as negative factor for them as cost of healthcare may rise to unbearable amount during market failure leading public to face economic issues with accessing healthcare. However, privatised US healthcare system has advantage of being in a contestable market system where all private organisations compete to provide best care provision for the consumers. As argued by Ranade (2016), to remain in a competitive market all organisations wish to maximise the product quality and minimise cost to attract potential customers. Thus, the US healthcare system has the advantage over the UK healthcare system to develop better medical facilities for the public as they wish to remain at an advantageous place in the competition within the industry.

In comparison to the UK healthcare system, the US healthcare system is seen to show favour for the wealthy (Karthikesalingam et al. 2014). This informs that while one class is able to access healthcare other class is deprived of it which result the country to have partial success is building a healthy population. The UK healthcare system is going to create larger economic pressure for the government with increase in ageing population as the government would require more finances to be provided as aid for fulfilling the free and state-funded healthcare process in the country. However, in the US healthcare system, no such influences are to be experienced by the government as they are privately funded and the government and minimal role to play in arranging funds for providing health care to their population.

Thus, the above discussion shows that the UK healthcare system has more pressure on the government in arranging proper healthcare services for the population in comparison to the US healthcare system as they are totally privatised. Moreover, the UK healthcare system has a central body to ensure healthcare standards are met whereas in the US they are looked after by the government and no separate governmental body exist for the purpose like the NHS. The US system of healthcare mostly benefits the wealthy and there is more preferably of medical insurance in comparison to the UK healthcare system.

References

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