Health
Care Around the World
The
quality of care in other developed countries is comparable
with that in the United States-patients have access to similar
drugs, diagnostic tests, and other technology for preventing,
diagnosing, and treating disease. Patients in Canada, the
United Kingdom, Western Europe, and Japan use primary care
physicians for most health problems. Patients are sent to
specialists for more serious conditions, and may receive care
in hospitals and nursing homes.
The
major difference is in the way other developed countries pay
for health care. Private health insurance pays for most care
in the United States. About 90 percent of Americans have private
health insurance. Employers usually pay a portion of the premium,
or cost, as part of the benefits provided to employees besides
their salaries.
Most
European countries have a national health insurance plan that
provides free care. Taxes paid by citizens pay the cost. In
Canada, the central government and the provinces share costs
for medical care. Individuals usually contribute a certain
amount through payroll deductions. The central government
does not own most health care facilities in these countries.
China
and other countries have a completely socialized health care
system. The government owns all health care facilities. Physicians
and other health care personnel are government employees.
The former Soviet Union established the world's first socialized
medical system in the 1920s. But Russia and other independent
republics, formed when the Soviet Union broke up in 1990,
are experimenting with private health insurance and other
financing methods.
Billions
of people in developing countries suffer greatly because medical
care is not readily available and is poor in quality. Governments
in many poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia spend
only a few dollars per person on health care each year. Trained
people, equipment, and medicines needed to provide the most
basic medical care are in grave shortage. Families in these
countries typically earn only a few hundred dollars each year.
They must rely on the government, international aid organizations,
missions, or charities for health care.
Health
care personnel and facilities are not evenly distributed among
the world's population. Wealthy industrialized countries have
more physicians and hospital beds per person than poorer developing
countries. In the mid-1990s, the United States had one physician
for every 400 people and Canada one per 454 persons. In comparison,
the African country of Malawi had one physician per 45,736
people; Nigeria had one per 5,207 people; and India had one
physician per 2,459 people. Hospital facilities are also distributed
unequally. The United States has one hospital bed for every
244 people compared with one per 196 in Canada; one per 949
in Honduras; one per 1,252 in Haiti; and one per 1,270 in
India. Major imbalances in the amount of money spent on health
care also exist. The poorest developing countries spent less
than $10 per person per year on health, compared to several
thousand per person in developed countries.
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