People in the United States want health care that maximizes their individual health potential and meets their health goals. They also want to ensure equitable access to essential health services. This desire, combined with uncertainty about the effectiveness of component health services in preserving or improving health, helps explain rapidly rising health care costs and unexplained variations in use of services for seemingly similar patients by different providers.
Attempts to control costs and assure quality in health care have been conducted through a mix of public policy approaches. These include licensing health professionals and facilities, imposing restrictions on expansion through health planning and certificate of need, controlling utilization through health care management and review programs, requiring quality assurance efforts in publicly financed healthcare programs, and encouraging private market forces to promote competition.
The most common approach to defining the concept of quality in health care focuses on patient outcomes. Quality care is viewed as meeting the needs of both the patient and society by achieving desirable health outcomes in terms of clinical results, cost, and experience. Quality in this context relates to the patient’s perception of his or her care, and it also encompasses the physician’s ability to assess the patient’s medical needs.
Health care is a complex and highly politicized issue in the United States. People hold many conflicting views about what is the proper role of health care in our society. Some view it as a product like any other consumer good that can be purchased and enjoyed or not, while others believe that a basic level of healthcare should be a right that the government must provide.
In the United States, most health care is provided by private businesses rather than government agencies. Most of the population has insurance through work or private companies. Governments offer Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly. The overall system is more privatized than in most other developed countries, although the government pays some of the costs for some individuals.
The cost of providing healthcare in the United States has increased rapidly over the past several decades. The increase has been attributed to the cost of new technology, the cost of treating disease and chronic illness, and increasing societal demand for healthcare. Moreover, hospitals’ operating losses have increased dramatically over the same period. The median hospital operating margin was negative in 2022, and most hospitals are struggling to meet their financial obligations.
Another factor contributing to health care costs has been the growth in the amount of labor expenses. This is largely due to the large increase in contract labor. This has been a challenge for hospitals, and some have been forced to close their doors. This is also the primary reason that more than half of all hospitals ended the year with negative operating margins. The average daily cost for a hospital to operate in 2022 was $47. Despite the high costs, most hospitals do not want to shut down because they serve a valuable community need.