Universal Health Care Systems in the United States Essay

Universal Health Care Systems in the United States - Essay Example Zambia is a classical example for low-income nations suffering from poor health care system and 80 percent of the people in the nation ‘are not expected to see their sixtieth birthday’ (Kendall, p. 417). However, statistics show that ‘large expenditure for health care do not always produce better health care for individuals†; for instance, the United States spends one trillion dollars on health care each year; however, when one compares the health care expenditures of Sweden with that of the United States, one can see that â€Å"Sweden spends an average of $ 1,701 per person on health care and has an infant mortality rate of 3.5; by contrast, the United States has an infant mortality rate of 6.8 (Kendall, p. 419). Thus, one comes to understand that there is great disparity among world nations in the distribution of health and diseases, and this has increased the scope for social epidemiology. This paper analyses the need to introduce Universal health care sy stems in the United States with special reference to the PBS documentary ‘Sick Around the World’. The Frontline documentary entitled ‘Sick around the World’ shows why the health care systems of nations like Great Britain and Japan are much more effective than that of the United States. The correspondent T.R Reid reports how the five nations-Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland-have adopted better universal health care systems than of the United States. In all these nations, â€Å"insurance premiums are significantly lower than those in America (in Britain there are none), and the waiting time to see a doctor is either tolerable (in Britain) or nonexistent† (Hale, 2008). The first chapter of the documentary ‘Great Britain: A leader in Preventive Medicine’ states that the American health care system is in big danger; the American health care system is the world’s most expensive health system but it leaves 47 billion people without medical coverage  and almost 25 billion are underinsured.