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Introduction

The current assignment is related to the detailed discussion regarding the issues of fairness and efficiency in the health care systems. The healthcare systems of US and UK have been analyzed in detail to evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of these systems in UK. Furthermore, the assignment includes the comparison of the healthcare systems of the two countries to evaluate their main elements as well as identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

Efficiency of the health care system refers to whether the resources directed towards the health sector are used appropriately or not. The efficiency in the use of the resources requires appropriate and sound planning through the process of resource allocation needs to be conducted. The concept of fairness has been discussed in light of the extent to which the healthcare system of US and UK has been able to serve the individuals that are residing in both the respective countries.

Efficiency of the health care system

The United States spends a huge amount of its GDP on providing healthcare services to its citizen. The budget of United States is one of the largest when it comes to spending on healthcare activities. The experts and the policy makers of the country are of the opinion that the spending in the health care sector of US is expected to rise in the coming years. One of the steps that were taken with the aim of improving the efficiency of the healthcare system of the country is the privatization of the health care system. Another feature of the healthcare system of the United States is that it provides tax-free benefits to the employees who are under the age of 65.

Employers are responsible for the selection of the insurance companies and the insurance plan to adopt for this purpose. However, it has been observed that in spite of the heavy spending that has been conducted by US in their healthcare system, they have not been able to achieve the desired outcomes. The healthcare system of UK is based around a government controlled body by the name of National Health Service (NHS). The NHS is constructed upon different range of organizations that are specialized in providing different kinds of services for patients. Altogether, these services look after 1 million patients in every day and a half (GOV.uk, 2015).

In comparison with the healthcare system of US, the healthcare system of UK is considered much better and effective. The reason for that being is the fact that in spite of being the largest spending nation on health care, US is far behind in serving its people effectively as compared to UK. Even though having different health services, trials are made to consider the performance of the National Health Service (NHS) across UK for the reason to make comparisons internationally.

Like in 2014 ,the Commonwealth Fund’s Mirror, that ranks the top eleven number one WHS , place the United Kingdom as the top in overall ranking achieving first place in the following divisions such as Quality of care, Efficiency and Equity along with access to care (Hudson, 2013). One of the major steps that have been taken in the United States regarding the improvement of their health reforms is the introduction of the Obama Health reforms. The bill, which is referred to as Obama Care includes many clauses that focus on the aspects of expansion in the quality and providing the opportunity for many common civilians of US to receive healthcare treatment.

The main objective of the health care bill is to enable the employees to obtain health and medical facilities in a convenient manner. Furthermore, the bill also involves different improvements to take care about certain sets of individuals such as senior citizens (Obamacarefacts, 2015). One of the most significant factors that differentiate the healthcare system of UK from the healthcare system of US is its cost-effectiveness. The analysis reveals that UK healthcare authorities spend much less in comparison to the US but still has better results to show for than their US counterparts.

One of the examples for that is the fact that NHS in UK is spending $3,405 annually on one person on an annual basis which is significantly less than $8.508 spent by American authorities in this respect. The figures clearly indicate the difference in the standards and in the efficiencies of the medical system in both the countries (Economist, 2014). The cost-effective nature of its healthcare is due to its efficient management of resources and capabilities in this sector over a period of time.

One of the major causes of the inefficiency of the US healthcare system is its privatization. The privatization has led towards the decrease in the quality of the healthcare system in US as many individuals are deprived from obtaining basic health facilities. In spite of the heavy spending by the authorities they have been not been able to provide the desired services to the individuals. The privatization has sort of commercialized the healthcare sector of US which has shifted its focus away from the public welfare.

Apart from that it also drives the resources away from the public sector which leads towards the increase in costs and inequalities in the system (Angell, 2008). Comparing this to UK and it is clear that they have socialized their healthcare system to accommodate individuals of all classes within their system. Because of these measures, they have been able to enhance the efficiency of their healthcare system as they have been able to serve more customers at low amount of spending because of more specialized nature of their healthcare system.

To summarize, the major problem with the healthcare system of United States is the lack of establishment of the healthcare system in spite of huge spending. One of the reports have highlighted that the healthcare system of US wastes about $750 million on annual basis (Atlantic, 2012). There are multiple reasons for this inefficiency in the system that has been highlighted through the model that has been presented below…