Healthcare Assignment: How USA & UK Responded To COVID-19?
Question
Task:
Healthcare Assignment Task: How USA & UK Responded to COVID-19?
The US Health System
Question 1a: Drawing on the Video, Commonwealth Fund and Duckett references describe the key features of the US health system? (e.g., public, private, mixed; the ideological basis for the system, how does it address health inequalities).
Question 1b. How has the USA responded to the COVID pandemic (e.g., morbidity and mortality rates, the type of policy response that was put in place in relation to physical isolation, testing, income support, vaccination rates, impact on health inequalities (ie. have some population groups been more badly affected etc)?
Other Health Systems and their Response to COVID
You selected a country, that country should be the focus of the following questions.
Question 4a: Describe the key features of your chosen country’s health system (e.g., public, private, mixed; the ideological basis for the system, how does it address health inequalities). Question 4b: How has your country responded to the COVID pandemic e.g., morbidity and mortality rates, the type of policy response that was put in place in relation to physical isolation, testing, income support, vaccination rates, impact on health inequalities (ie. have some population groups been more badly effected etc)?
Answer
The US health system
Healthcare assignment Question 1a
Certain derivatives and features are viewed in the case of the US healthcare system, performed by private, public, and joint ventures. Along with that, a major number of US citizens are not having their health insurance and that is why they can face financial threats (PBS, 2021). In the financial sector, the US is more capable than most of the countries and thus they have a widespread opportunity to invest in their healthcare service. It is hard to manage the death rate due to many diseases in America and for this PBS news hours helps to provide better healthcare services in different countries with a lower rate of investment. As a result, effective healthcare service is catering to Americans and managing all the issues by planning their investment and budget with a proper plan (OECD, 2021). According to PBS news, TMC innovation is the largest medical treatment centre in the US and insulates different advanced medical tools and techniques in the healthcare services of the American people.
To manage American public health systems and their coverage, relevant insurances are operating a fee-for-service and different Medicare systems are added to this system. In addition, "Obamacare” reforms an effective option for the people who are not involved with life coverage and health insurance and that is insured by state and federal “marketplaces”. It is a very high premium and effective norm for negotiation with private insurance systems. This is engaged with bull-buy arrangements and helps to manage proper ways of developing American healthcare systems within the country (Duckett, 2021). Moreover, 15% of adults who have aged from 18-64 are not involved with the insurance coverage and the reason behind this cost-effective and expensive insurance is double the costs compared to a single person insurance cost in England. For managing the Covid-19 pandemic there are no proper meetings and task forces in the US to protect against virus infection and manage the people healthcare system within the US. According to this study of this particular article, approximately 11 million Americans are infected by Covid-19 and more than 250,000 people are dead in this case. Due to the lack of infrastructure to face a sudden epidemic, people of the US did not get the opportunity to avail timely treatment with emergency service (Duckett, 2021). Former US President Donald Trump did not take any action to meet the challenges due to the pandemic which reflects a large amount of spread and outburst of this pandemic situation.
US healthcare system includes various types of caregiving as well as financing organization like Private, Public, non-profit, profit-making agencies as well as both public and private insurance companies. The US federal government provides different programs related to national Medicare funding for old-aged and adults for the low-income people and veterans. In addition, healthcare programs include "Children Health insurance program", and "Medicaid" and that indicate coverage of dominant, private insurance and besides 16% are down in terms of 8.5% population and that is a landmark of "Affordable Care Act and Law" (The Commonwealth Fund, 2021). In advance, US private and public insurance-related healthcare systems set different benefits packages, state and federal regulations, and cost-sharing structures. "Children Health Insurance program 1997" ("CHIP") has been created for the state-administered program and public health program for low-income persons. Additionally, 9.6 million children are involved with this program and 17.9% of Americans are engaged with Medicaid (The Commonwealth Fund, 2021). These statistics have shown that the government's policy is to ensure coverage of healthcare benefits to all the citizens of the country. On the other hand, "ACA 2010" ("Affordable Care Act 2010") is managed by the US government for developing finance and regulating healthcare services for their citizens and major components of this law follow coverage expansion up to 2014.
Question 1b
Documentation is an important part of government operation. In this regard, the US government focus on their reports of infected patients, number of recoveries, people who are vaccinated, people who are not yet vaccinated, and people who are suffering and died due to co-morbidity. As per the report, the total cases of death are approximately 657114 and total cases are still found at 41066110 in the US (WHO, 2021). This indicates a harmful situation in the US for managing the Covid-19 pandemic and its healthcare system for the private and public sector employees and adults. In addition, approximately 20 cores of Americans are fully vaccinated till September 2021 and 38.2 cores doses are provided by the US government (WHO, 2021). Most of them are satisfied with Co-Vax, and Covi-shield. Moreover, California faced an effective Covid infection and more than 4.62 million are infected and 67647 are dead from this pandemic. A large number of groups and people are impacted by this virus infection. Many of the people are now isolated and tested for identifying their virus infection. Based on research study different health care policies and less taxation are included by the government of the US to their public and for high-income countries more than $3,7 trillion money are invented for removing the issues and risks relevant to pandemic (OECD, 2021). The national healthcare system of the US provides Medicaid and ACA for their public, private healthcare systems.
Other health systems and their response to Covid
Question 4a
In this report, England has been chosen as a country to discuss and hence, the healthcare policy of this country is to be discussed. NHS ("National Health services") is the main body of England and that includes mental health care as well as hospitals and the budget of the NHS is funded by a general taxation system. NHS England, government agencies, overseas, and different allocates funds help to manage public and private healthcare services and besides more than 10.5% of UKs' population are involved with "carriers’ voluntary supplemental insurance '' for accessing proper healthcare in the UK along with 191 clinical services. Along with that, as NHS is a government-owned body, it becomes easy for the government to conduct their healthcare operation as it is instructed by the "National Health Service Act 1946". Moreover, by using the NHS, the UK can manage health coverage and the "National Health Service Act 1946" is crucial for the peoples' health and wealth for getting proper treatment and healthcare services (The Commonwealth Fund, 2021). According to legal terms, this act states that it is the responsibility of the UK government to establish an effective healthcare system along with secure improvement in terms of physical, mental health prevention of respective public.
According to the NHS budget, CGCs of 191 groups for LGP ("Local General Practitioners") are involved with most community care services and hospital systems in the UK. This is helpful for the public, children, and private employees to take care of their health and wealth according to their pocket-friendly cost. After that, "Secretary of State for Health '' includes health goals and efficiency of the healthcare staff and their activities (OECD, 2021). Different information technology and healthcare policies are engaged with these services and that is crucial for the UK's hospital management and NHS services to private and public employees. The UK spent more than 9.8% of GDP on their healthcare services and this related to the NHS, public expenditures, and 79.4% of the amount came from general taxes and 20% from the national insurance (The Commonwealth Fund, 2021). As a result, people of the UK can easily take private healthcare services in the areas of healthcare systems. Apart from that, for private health insurance, 10.5% of the UK population are helpful and 4 million policies are provided for the UK's healthcare activities to the people. In 2016, 3.3% of total health expenditures were involved with private healthcare insurance (OECD, 2021). Thus, based on the comparison, the UK has invested more economy and capital in their healthcare system than US healthcare activities and policies.
Question 4b
To identify the proper analysis of Covid-19 healthcare activities of the UK, different factors like testing, vaccination rates, morbidity and mortality rates, and income support are included. As per the report, the total completion of 1st dose in the UK is approximately 48,480,178 and 2nd dose is more than 44,170,373 and these are beneficial for removing the virus infection from the UK. Additionally, the Total number of deaths in England due to Covid-19 is approximately 134446 and the total confirmed cases are 7282814 and which is managed by the report of the NHS healthcare system (WHO, 2021). More than 10,000 people are isolated due to virus suspecting and to remove these issues and virus infection, the UK government tries to adopt the best quality healthcare protection and activities in England. To follow this mandate, it is viewed that NHS has implemented emergency provisions of National Health Policies and provided caregiving service and vaccines to those people who belong to lower level of the society. NHS is taking the initiative to provide free drugs and for this, more than 8.80 GBP is invested in their healthcare system. Additionally, NHS ensures about 256.50 GBP copayments per course treatment and that is maintained by the National Health Department of the UK (OECD, 2021). In 2016, for long-term care services, 37% were invented by the national healthcare system in England and that is useful for the low-income public and 35% of their residential care along with medical goods like pharmaceuticals equipment and components.
It is understood from the above analysis that the UK government is keener to manage their healthcare service as well as different layers of insurance policies as compared to the US. One of the major reasons behind the forthcoming stand of the UK is the implementation of the National Healthcare Policy, proclaimed and practised by NHS. Certain steps have been initiated by the UK government is to facilitate better healthcare services toward permanent residential people (WHO, 2021). According to the government policy of the UK, healthcare coverage is free and accessible paid by general taxation. Approximately 18% of tax goes toward the UK healthcare system, which means an average income of 4.5%.
Reference list
Duckett, S., (2021). How the US health-care system works — and how its failures are worsening the pandemic.https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-health-care-system-works-and-how-its-failures-are-worsening-the-pandemic-150271
OECD, (2021). OECD Reviews of Health Systems: A series of country reports.https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/reviews-health-systems.htm
PBS, (2021). Critical care: America vs. the World.https://www.pbs.org/video/critical-care-america-vs-the-world-f0cwgk/
The Commonwealth Fund, (2021). International Health Care System Profiles, United States.https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/united-states
The Commonwealth Fund, (2021). International Health Care System Profiles, England.https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/england
WHO, (2021). United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.https://www.who.int/countries/gbr/
WHO, (2021). WHO Director-General commends United States decision to support temporary waiver on intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. healthcare assignment https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2021-who-director-general-commends-united-states-decision-to-support-temporary-waiver-on-intellectual-property-rights-for-covid-19-vaccines
