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Barriers to Healthcare

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Barriers to Healthcare
Stephen Saputra
HCM735 – Healthcare Delivery Systems
Jean Gordon
May 22, 2014

Barriers to Healthcare Healthcare is an important aspect to every country and its population. People need good access to healthcare so that they can stay in good health as well as treat any illness or sickness so they can return to being healthy. Unfortunately in the United States, there is still a percentage of the population without access to health insurance – public or privates. There are many barriers to healthcare that prevents access to healthcare services such as geographic, physical, temporal, socio-cultural, or financial barriers. It may not be hard to believe that the United States spends the largest amount of money par capita for its health services compared to any other countries. The majority of U.S. population is covered with health insurance in some form, and they have easy access to various healthcare providers. The number of hospitals, emergency rooms, outpatient facilities has been continuously increasing in the last decade and many people are utilizing their service to maintain their health or improve it when they have an illness. We are seeing a shift in the trend lately of patients utilizing more outpatient facilities compared to the traditional hospital-centric care model. However it may come as a surprise to some that the high expenditure does not directly correlates to the U.S having the best healthcare system in the world.
The health status of the U.S. population is still lagging behind others in many key health indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality. Other countries such as Canada also provide universal coverage for their citizens where everyone that needs access to health care can receive them. As good as the existing healthcare is in this country, improvements can always be made to the system. President Obama and

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