An evaluation of health care models can be done based on certain factors. An evaluation should be done in respect to how well the system succeeds in providing good health care services to the people, cost of health services, and access to health care. According to the World Health Organization, a good and fair health system model must be able to provide good health care services to the people, distribute good health fairly, and show a high level of overall responsiveness, fair distribution of health costs, and fair distribution of responsiveness.
When compared to health care models such as the Beveridge and Bismarck, the American health care system has not effectively delivered health care services as it should. The US has one of the most expensive health care systems. The high cost of health care services is based on the total expenditure as GPD percentage and the health expenditure per capita. In 1998, the OECD per capita median was $1,783. The US spent more than twice this median by recording the amount spent per capita being $4,178.
In the Beveridge health care model, the cost of health care services is low. Health care under this model is financed and provided by a given government through tax payments. In addition, many health care facilities are owned by the government and many doctors are government employees. Because the government under this system is the sole payer, it is able to control what doctors and other health care professionals can do or the amount that they should charge for the services. This results to low costs per capita in the system.
Countries such as Britain and New Zealand use the Beverage model, which has proved to work very well due to its low costs per capita compared to the very high costs per capita in US. The high cost of health care in the US has been attributed to the increasing costs of medical technology, high administrative cost due to the complex US multi-payer system (Steffie and David, 1991), and the prescription of drugs. The growth of for-profit hospital chains has promoted for-profit health care rather than non-profit care (Steffie and David, 1997).
This has increased the cost of health care services for many Americans. With a high proportion of Americans being uninsured, a health crisis may result from expensive health care for conditions that could have earlier been treated or prevented. Access of health care for all Americans is a problem in the system. In the US, private insurance coverage is based on employment while the public insurance for the elderly, poor, disabled, and the military is provided under Medicare or Medicaid.
This creates gaps in coverage. When insurance rates go up, many employers decide to drop their insurance benefits or to raise premiums. The American system lacks a universal insurance coverage in health care. A large number of Americans lack health insurance, and this denies them access to proper medical care (Hadley, 2007). Consequently, cost shifting by hospitals and health care providers is done at the expense of high premiums for those insured or the tax payers.
In countries with universal health care models, access of health care services by the people is good. For instance, Germanys’ Bismarck model promotes health insurance that covers everybody. Although hospitals and doctors are private, governments have put into place tight regulations that give them the authority to control costs. The tight regulations make it easy for citizens to access proper health care services. The model is used in Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and Latin America.