Health care of the United States is the world’s most expensive, yet America’s health outcome is nothing to boast. In a study Nolte and McKee, the US had the highest rate of deaths amenable to healthcare per 100,000 populations of 19 countries studied. In the study, America show a rate not quite twice of France, even though France spends roughly half of what the US does in health care! Therefore, how could we get so little benefits from spending so much? The answer is primary health care.
There are numbers of reason for our failure in the health care system but the most noticeable seems to be our lack of emphasis on primary care. Studies such as the Nolte and McKee show that countries that focus on primary care have better health at lower costs. Primary care ratings are score on assessing availability and use of primary care; according to the ratings, the US is close to the bottoms. Association between primary care works and mortality rates- more primary care works means fewer deaths- there are no such relationships existing for physicians of other types. Therefore, to decrease health care cost, the numbers of primary care must rise.
Even so, America currently has a gap in the number of primary health care providers available and the number needed to deliver primary care to the full population. One report stated that as of 2010, America is short approximately 9,000 primary care doctors and health care leaders predict that that deficit will worsen dramatically in the next 15 years. Many students in the medical field are looking into specialize area and passing over primary care. For example, in a recent study from JAMA Internal Medicine only 2 percent of all medical students expressed interest in practicing primary care as a general internist. Most continued to flock to subspecialty or specialty fields like dermatology, anesthesiology, radiology, ophthalmology, etc. The question is why. The answer seems to be that most primary care providers lost...