Though called the “American healthcare system,†the overwhelming share of system resources is spent on sickness, on providing care to those who are unhealthy in some important way. Only a small portion of the resources spent by our medical care system is used to keep people healthy and to prevent them from becoming sick, through health promotion, disease prevention, and other public health programs.
In recent years, more people have recognized this disparity and have sought to focus more resources on disease prevention and health promotion. Meanwhile, it is still more accurate to call it the “American medical care system.â€
As numerous researches show, the most significant determinants of good health are education and income. The higher one’s income and education, the more likely that one’s health will be better. So, the three key elements of the healthcare system: (1) access; (2) cost; and 3) quality.
Thus one valuable way to improve the health of the population is to work to promote good education and to raise incomes.
Access initiatives will often affect costs and quality; initiatives to control costs usually have an impact on access and quality; and quality initiatives will have cost and access effects, both positive and negative.
