PHHE 461 Prescott College Health Systems Discussion

Watch the following program, “Sick Around the World.” Correspondent T.R. Reid finds that thesecountries (UK, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, Switzerland)impose limits on the health care systems in order to
keep care affordable. Please discuss one example of this using at least one of the 5 countries covered in
the program.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/view/
Respond to the following:
I have watched this documentary a handful of times, yet each time I watch it, I find new pieces of data
that I hadn’t caught previously. This time, I was especially interested in the health care system in the
United Kingdom. Everything about their health care system is different than in the United States. The UK
has health care for all, which is paid for by tax revenue. This means that the government owns the
hospitals and such. This is different from the US, but is a technique that every country hopes to adopt I
would think. Most of the success from the UK is made possible by health care for all, but there are some
downfalls to this as well. The goal is that no UK citizen will ever receive a medical bill. If every single
citizen has health care, then doctors offices, hospitals, and out patient facilities will become busy, even
more busy than what we experience in the US. But, as a country adopts and expands to this idea I am
confident that changes can and will reflect how to best serve its citizens. In the past 10 years, the UK has
found ways to decrease high weight times. As far as limits imposed by the UK, we see that it is a
government run system through the NHS. So, the UK government imposes higher taxes in order to
provide such services. Overall, I have seen a lot of success through the UK health care system. Elle
Martell
At least 100 words.