Improvement In Health Care: Medicare

For America health care it is a privilege; the United States has a mixture of government-run and private insurance with the government paying most of the cost. It also subsidizes private health insurance through Obamacare with one-third of the cost spent on administration and not patient care (Amadeo, 2018). Medicare is the health care system need to strive for improvements, such as preventive care, more screenings and pharmaceuticals. Due to our status as a multi-payer system, politics and the economy are the major players in the type of care American citizens receive.

Preventive Care Promotes an Overall Better Well-Being for All

Improving Medicare would provide many advantages such as helping elders in their early stages of sickness. For instance, preventive care will lower the chances of future costs. According to the article, Why America Is the Only Rich Country Without Universal Health Care, “Early childhood/elder care prevents future social costs.” These include crime, welfare dependency, and health issues. Health education teaches families how to make healthy lifestyle choices and preventing chronic diseases (Amadeo, 2018). Amadeo indicates that when providing universal health care for children, it will decrease the chances of them getting sick in the future and lower the chances of crime. When elders are receiving extra care, it gives them love and affection to know that people are there to help them get better. When elders get the opportunity, it will help them learn and promote a healthier lifestyle for themselves.

According to Denmark, their health care is much more significant than the United States. One of those reasons indicates what kind of health care they provide to people in their country. Their healthcare provides full coverage of preventive care and dental services for children under 18. For instance, International Health Care Systems Profiles, states, “Publicly financed health care covers all primary, specialist, hospital, and preventive care, as well as mental health and long-term care services. Dental services are fully covered for children under age 18” (Vrangbaek, 2015). Vrangbaek provided this information about Denmark’s universal health care to indicate how efficient it is to provide preventive care to children and elder adults if needed. If Medicaid improved then preventive care everywhere in the world, more children will be less sick and fewer older adults will go to the hospital for regular check-ups. However, this is also important to the US because children will be covered at all costs and parents would not have to worry about paying extra fees. Children in the United States would benefit having preventive care due to the Preventive care will decrease the chances for any elder from catching diseases as well as providing additional attention when the child needs it.

Nutrition and its Role on Diabetes

When it comes to our health, it is essential for what foods we consume every day and how much. Nutrition is very crucial to our lives and is need to ensure a long, healthy life. Some may not think that diet is not that important, but it is. Here is why nutrition matters so much to our everyday lives. Many people have been taking advantage of what they consume to their bodies which are resulting in them to become sick. The US of Health and Human Services stated that people who exercise and also maintain their weight are more likely to lower their chances of getting chronic diseases (HHS Office & Council on Sports, 2017). It is critical for an individual to stay healthy and watch what they eat. The dangers are a lot higher than what people may think and the more someone prolongs eating more robust, the quicker they will get diseases. Eating healthy is essential, but exercise also plays a huge factor in being healthy. Balancing out nutrition and exercising is going to help lower the risk of getting any diseases. Some of those risk factors include type 2 diabetes of a child and an increase in weight (HHS Office & Council on Sports, 2017). According to CDC, 84.1 million adults aged 18 years old or older have prediabetes (“Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. National Diabetes Statistics Report”, 2017). Prediabetes is a serious condition that leads to type 2 diabetes and very harmful for the child. That is exactly “33.9 % of the US population”, which pays a huge factor to the population. (“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Diabetes Statistics Report”, 2017). Medicare does offer Benefits for older adults with diabetes, but if medicare provided more nutrition and classes on how to prevent diabetes or take care of their diabetes in a more proactive way.

Screening Tests: When to Use and When not to Use

Having a healthy lifestyle is very important, but it is also essential to know your options and resources. For instance, and elder adult medicare if someone has recently been diagnosed with a disease due to health issues, the possibilities are necessary. One of those options consists of screening tests and diagnose tests; both in which used differently. A diagnostic test is to find out what specific symptoms the patient has and screening for people who are ill (“Benefits and Risks of Screening Tests,” 2016). These two tests are urgent when it comes to anyone’s health. It is used to detect the symptoms before it worsens or spreads and makes it difficult to fight against the disease.

Fighting disease is a serious matter, and if an individual does not go through a screening or diagnostic test as soon as possible, it may be too late. For instance, screening tests is a huge advantage to treat a disease in the early stages to help fight against the disease to continue to have a robust and healthy life (“Benefits and Risks of Screening Tests,” 2016). Screening tests should be provided for every patient to help diagnose a disease sooner than later.

Screening tests are not just used for detecting diseases, but is used to identify any other factors that may cause complications for an individual’s life. For instance, the screening that would apply on newborns would be called opportunistic screening such as hearing tests, etc. (Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests, 2016). Opportunistic screening used for an additional analysis like blood pressure and or used for x-rays (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016). Screening tests are used for diseases but also for many other factors.

Screening tests are used as a way to prevent someone from getting sick but can also be misinterpreted for curing a disease. Many people have gotten the wrong idea of the screening test. Screening tests are often used to protect someone from a disease, but not for all cases (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016). Doctors would become “optimistic” when using screening because it is used to help detect disease and prevent it from spreading. It is a way to “determine the risk factors” and help treat the odd symptoms from developing to a disease (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016).

For instance, medical tests or diagnostic test is an alternative if screening tests are not necessary. If a person is detecting abnormal symptoms in the beginning, right away a doctor will know to use other additional criteria. Those extra tests would be blood pressure or if a person is having trouble using the bathroom. If a person who is having problems using the bathroom, doctors will use the stone tool test to detect if this individual may have bowel cancer (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016). If a person may have this disease, the test results would automatically show if it is abnormal with an endoscope (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016). It is a way to see if the blood is caused by cancer or inflammation when using the bathroom (Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests, 2016).

The reason that screening tests may not be beneficial for a patient is if they have had the disease in their late stages already. In other words, using screening tests is a prevention method that a doctor may recommend finding the disease. However, using a screening test is only beneficial in some instances. According to PubMed Health website, “shows two groups of people who all died of cancer at the age of 70, whether or not they had done screenings when cancer detected at age 67, three years before their death” (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016). As for the other group, it shows a significant change in the number who have used screenings that diagnosed with cancer survived five years later (“Benefits and Risks for Screening Tests,” 2016). It is vital because screenings tests are only beneficial when needed. Screenings are highly effective when the patient has early symptoms and are in the early stages of a disease. In the example mentioned, patients who already pass the early stages of cancer, it will not be a use of screening. It would only make sense to use projections when its diagnose right away. Screenings are beneficial and useful when caught at the beginning of the disease and could help a patient continue to have a healthy life.

Pharmaceuticals

United States’ pharmaceutical drug costs are extremely high and are continuing to increase. “Medicare was paying 80 percent more than other advanced industrial countries for some of the most costly physician-administered medicines” (Pear, 2018). President Trump made a speech and said, “Americans pay more so that other countries can pay less.” In America, we are paying such a high cost for pharmacy drugs because of the innovative equipment and years of research it takes to put a drug on the market. Other countries are using us to their advantage because they’re using our research and innovations and then paying much less than the US for the same drugs.

“In low-income countries, the evidence is emerging that expanding health care coverage does not necessarily result in better outcomes, even for conditions highly amenable to medical care” (Kruk, 2016). To test this out, 13 years ago in India, are given program provided cash incentives for women to deliver their children in health facilities and monitored 50 million women, and their babies and the results did not improve maternal or newborn survival. They found that pursuing UHC increases access to poor quality of care and is unlikely to improve health outcomes.

Conclusion

Medicare is the primary source of health care . Medicare provides services that help older adults live longer lives but only does that to a certain extent. If preventive care and screening for diseases was taken more serious in the elder community then elders would possibly live longer and happier without any complications

Works Cited

1. Amadeo, Kimberly. (2018, August 15). Preventive Care: How It Lowers Healthcare Costs in America. The Balance. Retrieved November 3, 2018, from www.thebalance.com/preventive-care-how-it Lowers-aca-costs-3306074
2. Amadeo, Kimberly. (2018, October 10). Why America Is the Only Rich Country Without Universal Health Care. Retrieved November 03, 2018, from https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211
3. Benefits and risks of screening tests. (2016, December 27). Retrieved November 3, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0072602/
4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Diabetes Statistics Report. (2018, February 24). Retrieved November 3, 2018, from https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data/statistics/statistics-report.html
5. HHS Office, & Council on Sports. (2017, January 26). Importance of Good Nutrition. Retrieved November 3, 2018, from https://www.hhs.gov/fitness/eat-healthy/importance-of-good-nutrition/index.html
6. Kruk, M. (2018, September 5). Mortality due to low-quality health systems in the universal health coverage era. The Lancet. Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31668-4/fulltext
7. Vrangbaek, K. (2015). The Danish Health Care System. Retrieved November 3, 2018, from https://international.commonwealthfund.org/countries/denmark/