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Health Care Economics

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Health Care Systems of China (Taiwan) and the United States

Health Care Systems of Taiwan and the United States

Health care is one of the most essential foundations for any citizenship in any country since whether it is effective or not, it definitely affects the standard of living and the life expectancy of a country. According to Johnson and Stoskopf (2009), "A health system as described by the World Health Organization (WHO) is the sum total of all the organizations, institutions, and resources whose primary purpose is to improve health," (p. 3). Therefore, to positively improve a nation, having an effective health care system is crucial. Being recognized as one of the powerful countries in the world, the United States has a great shape of health care programs; however, sometimes it is inaccessible to some of the citizens. On the contrary, as a small country, Taiwan is famous for its health care system although there are still defective parts existing in the current system. To compare the differences of health care systems in Taiwan and the United States, we can observe the three major aspects: ownership, cost, and quality.

First of all, Taiwan and the United States have different types of ownership in the health care systems. Thus, Taiwan owns a single-payer system, which is run by the government, forcing everyone to join it and pay. Because of this policy, the coverage of health care is close to 99 percent (Underwood, 2009). In this country, the government-run system covers prevention, primary care, hospitalization, Chinese massage, acupuncture, traditional herbal medicine, mental health care, dental, vision, and long-term care. Unlike Taiwan, the United States possesses several types of public and private funding systems: Medicare and Medicaid are the two main public funded plans for Americans. There is also abundance of private insurance companies for

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