Health care (also called healthcare) refers to all efforts aimed at maintaining or improving physical, mental and emotional well-being by trained health professionals. It can be provided by the government or private providers. Some people believe that health care is a right that should be provided by the state. Others think that it works best if a free market is the main mechanism. Still others feel that the government shouldn’t be involved in any way but to provide insurance coverage for those who cannot afford it.
Many countries use a combination of approaches to providing health care. Some have a fully public system that is financed by taxes. This type of system is sometimes called the Beveridge Model, named after William Beveridge, a British social reformer who designed Britain’s original National Health Service. These systems tend to have low costs per capita and offer universal coverage. Some other countries have partially private systems and a centrally-controlled system of payment, such as Germany, France, Korea and Japan. These systems are characterized by less government control over the provision of healthcare and higher costs per capita.
The United States ranks last in the world on health outcomes and access to care, even though it spends more than any other country. It performs well on some process measures, such as the likelihood of a physician visit within a year and the number of hospital days. But it lags far behind the top performers in other areas, including infant mortality and life expectancy at age 60.
Health care is a complex issue and it’s not easy to find a solution that’s right for everyone. But it’s essential to understand the issues if we’re going to improve health care in America and around the world. That’s why we at the Commonwealth Fund study health systems in other countries, seek out policy and practice innovations and compare performance across a wide range of measures.
Whether we agree that healthcare is a right or a commodity, there are many ways to improve it. One possibility is to increase the focus on prevention and public health, which would reduce the prevalence of illnesses that lead to high medical spending. Another is to invest more in societal factors that affect health, such as early childhood education, parental leave and income supports for single parents, which would lead to healthier families and lower rates of child abuse and neglect. It is also possible to improve outcomes by addressing the root causes of high costs, such as sedentary lifestyles, obesity and poor nutrition, and by focusing on eliminating health disparities. These are the kinds of actions that we should take if we want to improve healthcare in America and around the world.