Taiwan Health Care Systems

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
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 people to choose, but they usually have a long list of pre-existing conditions, which restricts many patients since they are unable to receive health care insurance. Although the United States contains public and private programs, nearly 15.6 percent of Americans had no health insurance in 2003, (Samuel D.,
The cost determines whether or not the citizens of the country are able to pay for the bills. The overall quality is a critical aspect of health care system since it might either directly or indirectly influence a patient 's well-being. It is quite difficult for me to conclude which one of the health care systems is more effective due to the fact that Taiwan and the United States are distinctive in many ways, such as population and country size. Nevertheless, there are still several aspects that the United States can learn from Taiwan: for instance, studying other nations ' health care system. Before deciding on a health care system, the experts in Taiwan carried out research on several successful countries ' programs and eventually established its own in 1995. In my opinion, the United States can attempt to do so and establish another more efficient health care system. After all, having an efficacious health care system is vitally necessary for any country no matter it is wealthy or