Healthcare varies depending on location. Healthcare is constantly changing and being updated based on what works and what doesn’t work. Healthcare around the world is changing at different rates, resulting in different costs of healthcare around the globe. The question this paper is addressing is healthcare in the US and if the cost is justifiable. The areas of interest include overall healthcare costs, resources, and outcomes. Research in these areas shows that though the United States has proven to have good health outcomes, the steep price of healthcare is not justifiable when compared to other developed countries.
Healthcare Costs
Looking at the prices of healthcare around the world, healthcare in the United States is far from a bargain.
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Unfortunately, there are no significant differences in medical resources in the US and other countries: an X-ray in the United States is the same as an X-ray in Canada and any other country. However, Harvard magazine identifies that the difference lies in the frequency of resource utilization. The article states “The United States has the most technologically sophisticated medical system of any country, and it shows up in spending: the U.S. has four times the number of MRIs per capita as Canada, and three times the number of cardiac surgeons” (Cutler, 2020). The article does not relate this higher rate of utilizing resources to more medical visits. When going to the doctor, Americans use more resources than in other countries on a typical healthcare visit (Cutler, 2020). Using more resources costs more money. However, it is hard to identify if this is the United States being wasteful or careful. A way to identify this overuse as beneficial or wasteful is to look at healthcare outcomes in the …show more content…
As of 2018, US life expectancy is 3 years lower than the average of countries and nearly 20 years behind world leaders such as Japan and Switzerland (Ho, 2018). As other countries' life expectancy has been aging, the US has been at a standstill and not showing any improvement, even with increasing technology and health advances (Schneider, 2021). Despite high healthcare costs in the developed world, Americans are dying much younger than other individuals around the world. The United States overall has one of the youngest life expectancies. Moreover, it is not justifiable to spend more to see worse outcomes than others who are spending far