Kiran Gadani- US Healthcare System

I took a class during my undergraduate studies that studied the US health care system extensively. After learning from that class that the US spends the most on health care and gets the least out of it, I was shocked. After watching the Frontline documentary "Sick Around the World", which gave the same conclusion, I was still just as shocked. How does a country like the US let this happen? Our constitution is based on basic human rights, yet we have about 40 million people that do not have the right to health and so many others that are under-insured. We rank 37th in the world when it comes to health and are number one is spending. I feel as though one of the main reasons why the US has about 15% of its population uninsured is because Americans tend not to like change and we hate having the government have control over our lives in addition to the fact that the US is a free-market system. Comparing our system to others, we have lack three things: 1) our insurance companies do not have to accept everyone and can turn down the sick and elderly 2) health insurance is not mandated and 3) the system runs on a free-market so there is no set of standard prices for medical procedures and drugs. One of the main reasons why we have people uninsured is because health care insurance is not affordable and that it is not mandated by law in addition to the resistance to change among the American public. There is no magical equation for a successful health care system--as seen in the videos, there are down falls of other health care systems as well. However, it is the weight that the benefits carry that must out way down falls which will make a system successful in its own right. To effectively solve the problems of the US health care system, we must give up some benefits in order to better the health of the citizens and effectively use our financial resources.