Introduction
The health care provision differs worldwide. Most industrialized countries offer universal health care except for the United States. A great challenge arises in health provision because of the costs needed and the different cultural, social, economic, and political situations. The alarming state of U.S. health care has triggered business leaders, policymakers, as well as health experts to seek for methods to restructure a system that was in an incomparable crisis. As can be recalled, in 1994, the government participated in a huge conflict over the restructuring of the healthcare system. The U.S. health care is very costly. Hence, the majority of the Americans do not obtain the needed care. This paper offers a comparison of the healthcare system of the United States and Japan.
Japan
Japan’s economic development began in 1961, the period when the country also achieved complete coverage of health insurance for its people. The health system continued to evolve and improve. A non-linear path was applied in Japan’s universal coverage. The application of such coverage varies depending on certain factors such as working, visiting, or studying in Japan; age, and a lot more (Reich & Shibuya, 2015). In the United State, healthcare services are considered to be unreliable. A lot of people are not receiving the timely and quality care they deserve. The U.S. does not have a single health insurance system. The insurance is usually bought in the marketplace through various profit commercial companies or given by the government. About sixty-one percent of the health insurance coverage is related to employment, mainly because the cost savings related to the group plans are brought via the employer (Ridic et al., 2012). Employers volunteer themselves in sponsoring the insurance plans.
As opposed to buying a health insurance from an outside source, manager, and representative premiums store an inside medical coverage arrangement. The completely self-insured organizations expect all the danger for its workers' social insurance costs. A somewhat self-insured organization restrains the risk by acquiring "stop-loss" protection coverage, which shields it from causing costs over a predetermined maximum amount (Ridic et al., 2012). In either case, the firm contracts with an outside party to control the medical coverage program.
There are two major forms of public health insurance – Medicaid and Medicare. Medicare is a uniform national general health care coverage program for the old and the handicapped people. Regulated by the government, Medicare is the biggest health insurance provider that covers approximately thirteen-percent of the entire population (Ridic et al., 2012). The Medicare arrangement comprises of two sections. Section A is obligatory and gives medical coverage scope to inpatient facility care, exceptionally restricted nursing home administrations and some home medical administrations. Part B is the intentional or supplemental arrangement that gives advantages to doctor administrations, outpatient doctor's facility administrations, outpatient research center and radiology administrations and home medical administrations. The second kind of general medical coverage program, Medicaid, gives scope to certain monetarily burdened groups. Medicaid is together financed by the elected and state governments and is directed by every state (Ridic et al., 2012). Scope under Medicaid has shifted since states have set up various necessities for qualification. People who are elderly, visually impaired, handicapped or individuals from families with children who are still dependent must be secured by Medicaid for states to get government reserves. Also, in spite of the fact that the national government fortifies a specific essential package of human services benefits, a few states are more liberal than others. In the United States, primary care specialists work in the private for-profit groups or sectors. Since the 1980s, the majority of the insured people had complete choice of the health specialists they prefer. They can visit a care giver or any outpatient health facility they chose to. Medicare covers all forms of drugs. Drugs are arranged in tier. Those in higher tier will cost the insured individual more than those in the lower tier ("What drug plans cover | Medicare.gov", 2016). In Medicaid, it is within the choice of the insured individual if pharmacy coverage is going to be availed or not. Outpatient drugs are usually covered under Medicaid. Health insurance coverage equates better outcomes for health and a standard basis of care. By having health insurance, illnesses are detected earlier and managed.
In Japan, the social security system is categorized into four namely social welfare, social insurance, public health, and public assistance. The main social insurance is a necessary framework that guarantees the job of nationals by giving a measure of trade or in-kind benefits if there should be an occurrence of injury, childbirth, disease, disability, old age, and loss of the job. Within such arrangement, a universal insurance healthcare system is extended to the public in compliance with the NIH Act or the National Health Insurance Act (Reich & Shibuya, 2015). Japanese people are covered by either an employee’s insurance or a national health insurance of those who are unemployed. Regarding medical insurance, the insured individual renders some money to the insurers, and for certain instances such as a consultation, the insured individual pays a portion of the costs of the services obtained from the health institutions. Then, the health organizations claim fee to the services rendered and obtains the pay from insurers. Payment for health expenditures is rendered on a fee-for-service basis. The Japanese medical services framework gives free screening examinations to specific illnesses, control of infectious disease and pre-birth care (“Japanese Healthcare System”, 2016). This social insurance is given by both the neighborhood and the national governments. Installments for individual medical administrations are offered through a protection framework called all inclusive social insurance. This framework gives fairness of access, alongside charges that are set by a specific government advisory group. In Japan, all natives are secured by the national protection framework in which general free access to social insurance administrations is guaranteed to each individual. There are no broad doctors or "guardians" in the Japanese social insurance framework (Toyabe & Kouhei, 2006). For retirees in the United States, they need to buy their own insurance in the marketplace. In Japan, retirees apply for the Retiree Medical System and if they are eligible, they get access to quality healthcare services.
Conclusion
Both U.S. and Japan healthcare system have challenges. Gaps in the access to health services are influenced by several factors including poor outcomes and high costs. Also, the absence of universal health coverage, poverty, high accident rates, teen pregnancy, and violence contribute to the problems as well (Rice et al., 2014). In Japan, the high cost of education for doctors and doctor shortages are the main challenges (“Not All Smiles”, 2011). Comparing the two, Japan’s healthcare system is better. It has withstood years of providing quality health services to its population. On the other hand, U.S. health care system needs a serious internal reform.
References
Japanese Healthcare System. (2016). Nurse.or.jp. Retrieved 6 August 2016, from http://www.nurse.or.jp/jna/english/nursing/medical.html
Not all smiles. (2011). The Economist. Retrieved 6 August 2016, from http://www.economist.com/node/21528660
Reich, M. R., & Shibuya, K. (2015). The future of Japan's health system—sustaining good health with equity at low cost. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(19), 1793-1797.
Rice, T., Unruh, L. Y., Rosenau, P., Barnes, A. J., Saltman, R. B., & van Ginneken, E. (2014). Challenges facing the United States of America in implementing universal coverage. Bulletin of the World Health Organization,92(12), 894-902.
Ridic, G., Gleason, S., & Ridic, O. (2012). Comparisons of health care systems in the United States, Germany and Canada. Materia socio-medica,24(2), 112.
Toyabe, S. & Kouhei, A. (2006). Referral from secondary care and to aftercare in a tertiary care university hospital in Japan. BMC Health Services Research, 6(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-6-11
