The preference for minimal government oversight and ideas of individualism are responsible for the way American health care system is structured. However, access to health insurance and health care has been a pressing issue in this nation for a long time; rated by the WHO as one of the worst among industrialized countries, the United States’ health care system is too costly and fails to cover everybody. Despite president Obama’s attempt to bring about change, many continue to question the effectiveness of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act the concerning both costs and overall coverage. The issues regarding health care reform directly affect the feasibility of the American Dream because adequate health care and insurance are necessary to full citizen participation and it is the government’s responsibility to provide access. I believe that given this nation’s strong anti-statist values it will be difficult to implement a federal health care policy; therefore it is more feasible for states to create health reforms like the one in Massachusetts and ensure universal health care.
In 2007, the US health system presented many problems concerning the amount of people who were both uninsured and underinsured and the fast rise of insurance premiums causing many Americans to report debts and problems due to medical bills (Commonwealth Fund Commission, 232). The cost of American health care is inarguably one of the major setbacks of the system; it is the highest amongst those of other industrialized nations but not necessarily more effective. For instance, a case study in the town of McAllen, Texas, shows how the overuse of medicine and the “fee for service” incentives available to doctors can really drive up the cost of medicine. McAllen is one of the most expensive health care markets in the country where most doctors focus less on preventive care and more on running extra tests, services and procedures out of fear of malpractice, influenced by differences in training, or simply to make a few extra dollars. (Gawande, 340-342). Although the situation in McAllen might be an extreme example, it does not fail to explain how the “culture of money” partly affects the cost of health care system. Unlike systems such as Canada and Japan, the American government plays a minimal role in bargaining down prices or setting price standards, this lack of control allows doctors and medical institutions to often purchase the latest technology, but not the most efficient (Klein, 256). Nevertheless, doctors are not to be labeled as the villains because private insurance companies add to the problem by expending a quarter and a third of their revenues on administrative costs (Weissert and Weissert, 350).
