An Evaluation of German and United States Healthcare

Germany

     After doing research, I found that unlike the United States, in Germany, there is universal healthcare. Though Germany does offer privatized healthcare, its is not a requirement that one can be penalized for not having. Personally, taking into factor the pros and cons of privatized and universal healthcare, I believe that universal healthcare is better. Not only because the care is almost infinitesimal compared to privatized healthcare, but also because of the motivation of the care. This is likely due to the differences in culture- more specifically, the differences in values.

The United States of America

     The United States is a capitalist driven nation. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it becomes something dangerous when taken to extremes. For example, in healthcare, the focus is not on saving lives and improving quality of life, rather its concentrated on being a profitable business. Which explains why in the US a simple MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) costs about two thousand dollars. On the other hand, there are health insurance companies but these are more monetarily driven than any other category out there. They thrive by monopolizing hospitals thus penalizing those that refuse to subscribe to their insurance. But people don’t just decide they don’t want health insurance- for the most part, they can’t afford it. Having to pay high-rate deductibles and still having to cover a large portion of the cost, makes it inaccessible.

    Considering all the information, it’s obvious that the US values profit at the expense of debt of the people and nation while Germany values the quality of life of its people over profit. In other words, the core values of each culture present themselves in the coordination of their healthcare systems.