By Kawan Shali
After the COVID-19 pandemic started, the attention surrounding health and healthcare increased. As a result, discussions started about the problems that plague hospitals in the United States. These discussions surrounding hospitals expanded to the entire healthcare system in the United States, analyzing the problems surrounding it.
One of the major talking points surrounding healthcare specifically in the United States is the high cost of healthcare. While many other countries have universal healthcare systems, the United States has a more privatized healthcare system. As a result, prices in the US healthcare system are extremely inflated compared to other countries similarly developed, such as Sweden and the Netherlands. Due to the high prices, many Americans need to obtain health insurance to make the cost of receiving the necessary care manageable. Unfortunately, many Americans simply do not have the means to access health insurance. As money is important in modern society, receiving expensive medical care can decimate a person’s financial standing. Thus, the high prices implemented by the American healthcare system serve to stop many people who do not have enough money and do not have health insurance from receiving the care they need, which leads to deaths that could be easily preventable. The fix seems easy to this problem: reduce the prices of healthcare and health insurance, and more Americans will recieve the medical care they need. However, this overlooks another problem.
In America, there is a shortage of doctors and nurses needed to provide medical care. As a result, hospitals tend to be understaffed. This has been a major problem with the healthcare system in America for a long time, but this problem has only become more visible through the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, hospitals across the world have been understaffed and overworked due to the vast influx of patients being admitted to the hospitals. Due to the struggle the overworked staff face in attempting to provide care for the plethora of patients, the care of some patients gets overlooked. The plight of these patients has brought attention to the vast shortage of doctors and nurses in the healthcare industry and how they cannot care for everyone.
One of the major factors blocking many people from becoming doctors and nurses is the time commitment someone has to put in to get one of these jobs while spending plenty of money and most likely going into debt. In order to become a doctor, a person has to obtain their undergraduate degree, then get into medical school and complete medical school, then match into their residency; only after doctors complete their residency can they start fully working and earn major money. This entire process can take over ten years. Nurses have to complete their undergraduate degree, then complete nursing school, which can take over six years. The vast time commitment and the amount of money spent to become a doctor and nurse, which can be over $200,000, serves as a major barrier to many prospective doctors and nurses.
One way to fix this problem is to reduce the difficulty required to become a doctor or nurse. Since it takes time to learn the proper procedures to give medical care to someone, reducing the cost of becoming a doctor or nurse would serve to allow more people to take up these roles. Having more doctors or nurses can alleviate other problems in the healthcare industry as well: with more doctors and nurses, more people in America can receive medical care, and hospitals might not be as overworked. With an increase in the number of doctors and nurses, the price of medical care would decrease due to economic principles of demand and supply. This would allow more people to afford the medical care they need.
Sources:
https://www.medifind.com/news/post/problems-us-healthcare-system