Healthcare Class: Comparison and Analysis of Two Critical Articles
Introduction
This paper reviews the two critical articles written on American healthcare system. The author, David Goldhill, has narrated his personal experience of American healthcare system in his article “How American Health Care Killed My Father” (Goldhill 2). Whereas the other article “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us” written by Steven Brill is essentially a critique on the current US healthcare with much of its emphasis on current US President Obama’s healthcare policies recognized as ‘Obamacare’ (Brill 7).
The complexities of US health care system has raised countless debates and discussion in the American social as well as political circles. Primarily, healthcare system has remained a subject matter of American politics for long time ago and it will remain so in future as well (Summers 46). On the social spheres, the pertaining complexities accentuate many holistic questions in the minds of American citizens that how the concept of welfare state can be realized without improving the crisis of healthcare system.
Analysis
In his article, Goldhill has highlighted the fundamental issues related to the current healthcare system. The article expresses the writer’s own exploration into the healthcare system to investigate the underlying problems and to seek the solution of those problems. It explains the author’s personal experience that how the quality and service of the healthcare industry is declining but yet the patients are being charged at incredibly high cost. The deteriorating quality of health facilities are witnessed and articulated in the author’s account. Steven Brill has reaffirmed range of the issues expressed by Goldhill in his exploration of US healthcare system and stated the importance of the associated improvements particularly with regards to the political dimensions of the problem (Goldhill 1).
According to Goldhill’s article, there is a need to distinguish between health care facilities and health insurance policies. Health insurance is different from other kind of insurances, where we expect that all the money-matters should be endured by insurance companies, and this thinking at individual as well as corporate and even at state level has played its role in increasing the health care expenses. The key reason of costly healthcare services as identified in Goldhill’s article is the prevailing thinking that our medical bills will be paid by our employer. According to Goldhill, this thinking is not factual since the employer based health insurances should only cater for the part of medical bills and much of the burden is put on the employee’s income or may be on the after retirement benefits. As a result, the quarter or half of the current burden of employee’s medical insurance is put on others and deducted from their income even before they receive it and resultantly, it plays a significant role in making the healthcare system inherently expensive. Likewise, Steven Brill has expressed his views on the issue of insurance and he argued that the fundamental problem is not the lack of insurance but it is the insurance itself. Brill considered that the hospitals and the patients do not negotiate for the price and the only desire of any patient is to avail the insurance be it available at any cost. As a result, a normal medication that would cost him less money is charged more. The thinking of consumers (patients) that the price is the headache of insurance company or the hospital has damaged adversely and hence contributed to the increasing costs of overall healthcare system.
Goldhill has drawn attention to the depriving moralities in the healthcare industry where the profit gains and the commercial aspects are increasingly becoming the fundamental focus. He stresses upon the necessity of keeping the medical facilities available and affordable for every individual without any discrimination. The people should also show there moral authority and they should not claim medical insurance if it is not required. Goldhill argues that the media campaigns by advertising companies on medical insurances often contribute a negative role when they are focused on attracting masses by offering their help in claiming medical insurance. They focus on spreading this immoral message that one can gain all benefits without paying any medical bill. These moral perils result into creating dissimilarities in the availability of healthcare as the one person is getting all the benefits at the cost of other. However, this aspect is not much emphasized in the Brill’s article.
Goldhill’s article emphasized that hospitals are also playing a crucial role in increasing the cost of medical facilities. They aspired and used the rules and regulations in their own favour which were enforced for the benefits and welfare of patients. Goldhill has argued in his article that although, hospital are supposed to provide and extend medical facilities to any walk-in patient and especially to those who are admitted in emergency, but how can we decide that the benefits acquired as charity also justify the associated social cost for these benefits. He has termed these hospitals as ‘favoured’ since they are protected by law and regulations. Moreover, he has described that the current healthcare system lack the prospective of competitiveness. In addition, he has blamed the government regulations for this reason, as most of the regulations employed by the government often put impediment for the corporate or business sector who want to invest in the healthcare system. As a result, that social purpose provided by highly profitable industries in reducing the cost of facilities is vanished. Furthermore, the healthcare system is usually regulated by states and it eliminates the concept of interstate competitiveness and consequently the associated costs are always increasing. Brill’s article compared the issue of competition in healthcare system with education (Goldhill 9). According to Brill, the necessity of having a transparent healthcare is more than the education system but yet, there is little or no transparency in terms of prices in healthcare system. Brill presented an idea that when the competition is lacking the transparency of any system is compromised. To put it into perspective, Brill has specifically given an example of a tablet that is priced at $1.50 per tablet in hospital, due to excessive insurance mark-ups, and compared it with the price of the same tablet available on Amazon at the cost of $1.49 for 100 tablets (Brill 1). This difference is attributed to the unfairness in health insurance. However, Goldhill’s article has touched more avenues and with a wider scope on the issue of competitiveness compared to Brill’s article.
Another key prospect held responsible for damaging the healthcare system in the Goldhill’s article is the growing costs of medical technology. Goldhill has regarded it as a beast that is driving up the cost of health facilities and therefore the affordable and qualitative healthcare system is rampant and unavailable (Goldhill 7). Brill’s article has articulated this problem with another perspective that what is the need of any advancement in medical technology that is instead of reducing, increasing the cost and as a result it become unaffordable (Brill 21).
Healthcare system has always posed challenges for all the president of United States. It has also been illustrated in the historical references that it is significant to emphasize and have a strong view on healthcare problems for any of the presidential candidate of the country. In this regard, both of the two articles have discussed several aspects of political reforms which are proposed and initiated by Obama’s administration to solve the problem of US healthcare system. Goldhill identified the inherent limitations and shortcomings of the ‘comprehensive’ reform which were under discussion at that time by the President Obama’s administration. The proposal of investment in technology based healthcare improvements has only partial advantages (Goldhill 14). According to Goldhill, the technological solutions are only helpful if they are implemented in an appropriate way and only where it is required. If most of the hospitals and physicians don’t has inclination to use the electronic medical records then bringing new advancements in information technology to solve the health care crises would not be an effective solution rather it will increase the state expenditures again. He suggested that government should look for larger reforms with broader perspective beyond their present mandate and limitations. On the other hand, Brill’s article focused on the point that first of all everyone needs to understand that government cannot do everything (Narea). However, proper legislations in the direction of solving all the inherent problems articulated in his article is required. This essentially means the same what Goldhill’s has proposed, i.e. to enhance the scope of changes required in the prevalent system and to have courage to find an out of the box solution. According to Brill, Obamacare has taken a positive initiative but it would not result in the reduction of associated costs and thus it will not decrease the fees we are supposed to pay right now (Brill 15).
Remedies and Conclusion
Goldhill’s article provide the way forward and remedies for the healthcare system and the author has proposed that we need to move from comprehensive health insurance system towards a model driven by consumer. The facilities should be qualitative but the medical subsidies should be more focused on and available for the depriving class. Goldhill concludes that we spend much more money on healthcare and therefore it is necessary to shift the healthcare model into a more realizable and affordable system, that is affordable both for the patients as well as the government.
Similarly, Brill has mentioned some remedies to solve the crisis of healthcare system. According to Brill, the need of hour is to weaken all kinds of control exercised by politicians on insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and hospitals. He emphasized the need to reduce the lobbyists who try to influence on doctors, health product companies, and pharmaceutical companies together with the insurance companies. Finally, he suggested that the idea of having a profit based healthcare system should be revisited because health is the basic necessity for every individual. Like Goldhill, he has also suggested the removal of monopolies and dominations present in healthcare system and suggested to create the openings to bring fairness and competitiveness in the system in order to witness improvements.
In a nutshell, both articles identified several key concerns related to the US healthcare system. They have also suggested remedies, reforms and the solutions which are needed to intervene the declining performance of healthcare facilities. It is significant to note that these articles received great attention socially as well as politically and many new studies on reforms are initiated in response to the problems and catastrophes identified in these articles. Presently, the political reforms initiated by Obama’s administration are one of its own kind and probably the biggest after the period of Medicare and there is an opportunity to solve most of the problems of healthcare system if not all.
Works Cited
.Goldhill, David. “How American Health Care Killed My Father.” The Atlantic 304.September (2009): 1–16.
Goldhill, David. Catastrophic Care. Knopf, 2013.
Summers, J. “Ethical Issues in Healthcare Reform: The Experts and the Public Compared.” Journal Of Healthcare Materiel Management 12.5 (1994): 46, 48, 50 passim. Print.
Brill, Steven. “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us”, Time Magazine. (2013): 1-28 Available: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2136864,00.html
Narea, Nicole. Time health care exposé continues to make waves. CROSS CAMPUS.Yale Daily News. Web. March (2013): http://yaledailynews.com/crosscampus/2013/03/24/time-healthcare-expose-continues-to-make-waves/
