Access to health care system Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Access to health care system - Essay Example 83). It is said that infant mortality and life expectancy provide a glimpse of the population health; meaning, this signals a problem for the U.S. healthcare system. France has a public-private collaboration of hospital and ambulatory care, reinforced by higher resources of care and services. Ambulatory care for the poor is provided by both the U.S. federal and local government units which can be attained from county or municipal hospital, local health authorities, or other not-for-profit health organizations. France’s current health insurance scheme encompasses about 80% of the French population, including illegal immigrants, and spends about 9.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) for healthcare. The U.S. spends 16% of its GDP for healthcare. Canada spends about 10% of GDP for healthcare annually (Romanow, 2005, p. 527) and ranks eighth in global healthcare spending (OECD, 2008 as cited in Kelly & Tazbir, 2014, p. 49). Access to healthcare does not only mean large spending in healthcare services but needs a system involving a collaborative effort from the various sectors of society to answer to the increasing demand of healthcare from a growing population. Canada and France spend a smaller share of their GDP on healthcare than the United States does, but in statistics on infant mortality and life expectancy they appeared to be better (Wendel et al., 2014). In a survey on patient satisfaction, Canadians and Americans had quite the same results, 46% for Canadians and 40% for Americans, saying that they were â€Å"fairly or very satisfied† (Richard-Kortun, 2010, p. 123). A study by O’Neill and O’Neill (2007 as cited in Wendel et al., 2014) compared U.S. and Canada healthcare data, focusing on cancer incidence and mortality rate. Healthcare reflects population health. The authors revealed that cancer-related deaths were higher in the U.S. than in Canada, for both men and women. The authors also revealed