The health care system is facing many challenges, despite of the fact that huge amount of investment is being done in health system. The health system is unable to attain the desired level of growth and progress. This is mainly due to the reason that this problem cannot be solved merely by investing heavily in the medical advances, there is a need to bring a social change that help in the reduction of the disparities prevailing in the American society. Investing for medical advances is significant for the welfare of the nation, but this should not be done at the expense of the social change. The government and the industry both have spent billions of dollars annually in order to develop new devices and drugs, but still they are unable to control the mortality rate. The solution of this problem is that investment should be made in other areas also, such as in education. Investing in the education will help in people to have more knowledge and awareness about the problem and they become capable of choosing the right medical centre for availing proper and best health treatment. The more an individual is educated the healthier and longer he/she will live. Hence, investing in children during their entire process of education, empowering teenagers with a chance and opportunity of completing high school, will help in the reduction of the mortality rates. For the smooth functioning of the system, it is necessary that the educational inequalities and disparities should be targeted in the health bill, which ensures equal educational rights of all the individuals. This will in turn improve the overall health of population.The educational funds should be allocated properly, so that the buildings of school, the teacher-student relation, curricular and the extra-curricular activities can be made better. The researches have also confirmed this fact that educated people remain safe from several chronic and acute diseases such as stroke, heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes, ulcer, asthma and emphysema etc. an educated person is likely to perform in a better way both mentally and physically because he is not suffering from depression or anxiety. Moreover, their functional limitations are also few that allow them to work efficiently. All these factors allow people to live a longer and healthier life.
However, there are some other factors also that need to be address in the new health care bill. These are ethnicity, race, geographical area and ethnic group, which pave the way to the health disparities and also contribute to the gaps in the attainment of education. Considering the fact that a person belonging to a specific ethnic group that do not prefer adequate education have higher chances of becoming involve in the unhealthy activities and behaviors. An individual is affected by the neighborhood and also by the factors linked with the social environment, which ultimately influence the health of the person. This is an outcome of the poor education. So, it is also essential that disparities should be removed among different races. Financially, this will help lower the fiscal cost that is related to poverty, which in turn improve the standard of living of the poor and helps them to live a better and healthy life. The most noteworthy factors in the United States that affect the health of individuals are social conditions, exposure to environment, genetics, health care and behavioral patterns. These factors are also responsible for premature death; medical care in this regard plays a relatively small role. The country spends a lot on health care, it spends more than any other country in the world but still the country is not ranked at satisfactory level in the health status.
However, the health can be improved to a larger extent by changing the behaviors of people. Modification in the personal behavior of people will help to improve the health and decrease the premature deaths; this is because of the fact that approximately 40% of the deaths in America are associated with the behavior. Te behavioral factors such as stress, violence, smoking, accidents, improper and poor diet, and the societal factors such as poverty, discrimination, lack of the insurance, gender biases, and no or poor access to the health care (Adler & Newman, 2002), can all be controlled and can be changed that can reduce the 40% of the deaths occurring because of these factors. Considering the financial implication of the behavioral change, its maintenance and initiation can be difficult and may intervene in the clinical trials. However, rigorous research by the social and behavioral scientists is not enough in this regard, there should be proper delivery systems and channels in order to make the policymakers, decision makers and the public aware of the interventions, so that necessary actions can be taken for controlling and disseminating such hurdles. Moreover, for changing the behaviors of individuals, it is necessary that the basic research is improved so that human motivational elements can be understood properly. This will help to maintain the change in individual’s behavior across several diseases, and with the use of this knowledge economical and effectual behavioral involvement and interference can be assured. This behavioral change help to improve the health of residents more than the technological change can improve.
Furthermore, income is also an important factor that is associated with the premature mortality in the United States. Income disparity is prevailing in the country to a greater extent, and this inequality is not letting the majority population to live a healthy and longer life (Deaton & Lubotsky, 2003). There are many mechanisms that can explain this association of income and premature death of individuals. Poverty can affect the individual’s health through reduced participation in the society, material and things deprivation and poor control over life. Contrary to it, people with higher income enjoy greater social participation, access and control to the safe products and neighborhood, education, clean air and water and healthy food. But, the majority people are now the victims of poverty and are deprived of the amenities of life. The income inequality represents low level of confidence and trust, lower birth rates, mental illness, lower social mobility, high mortality, obesity, poor performance in education and this may also influence the biological functioning of a person by increasing the stress and mentally depressing an individual. Greater inequality in income increases status insecurity and competition that is associated with the adverse outcomes of health, especially with mortality. One way to control this inequality is to fund the early education of childhood (Matthews, 2012). This will help the people belonging to poor families, and the disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups and they will also be able to live a better life as they do not have to pay the tuition fee of their child. They can get healthy food to eat and can live a healthy life.
References
Adler, NE., & Newman, K. (2002). Socioeconomic disparities in health: pathways and policies. Health Affairs, 21(2), 60-76
Deaton, A., & Lubotsky, D. (2003). Mortality, inequality and race in American cities and states. Social Science & Medicine, 56(6), 1139-1153
Matthews, Daylan. (2012). Ten ways to reduce inequality without raising tax rates. The Washington Post. Retrieved from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/06/ten-ways-to-reduce-inequality-without-raising-tax-rates/
