Flagstaff High School

All about that Green Stuff

Sienna Chitwood

The American health care system is more of an individual paid process while in Europe their healthcare is more tax based, and which makes it more affordable. There are similarities and differences in both health care systems, but what stands out is affordability.

 America's health care has been known for its over-expensive costs, that causes many Americans not to be insured. According to nashbio.com a website for Nashville Biosciences that provides clinical data and medical imaging to help the clinical testing “an estimated 28 million non-elderly Americans remain uninsured despite the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions”. The Affordable Care Act was a law passed in 2010 aimed to make healthcare more affordable to expand the coverage for Americans that are uninsured; however, that has done little to help the people of America.

In other countries like Europe, their taxes contribute to the medical costs that save lives. Nashbio.com, “European healthcare systems are overwhelmingly publicly-funded through taxation to ensure universal coverage for all legal residents”. However, Europe's health care system does have some downsides as well such as: wait times to get into non-emergency care due to high demand, funding challenges as Europe's population grows, and shortages of workers due to the long hours and low pay. American health care has some benefits as well. With good and expensive health insurance, there are also shorter wait times for major procedures, but the pros of the American health care system come down to over-priced health care insurance that doesn't cover all costs and most working Americans cannot afford.

The average cost to have a child in the U.S is hundreds to even thousands of dollars. According to Forbes.com, a website for Forbes Media LLC that shares information on business, entrepreneurship and investment opportunities, “it costs nearly $19,000 to have a baby in the U.S. That includes expenses for pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care. Complications such as preeclampsia or premature birth can increase these costs to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Health insurance typically covers most of these costs. But if you don’t have health insurance, you can expect a hefty hospital bill”. 

What about in Europe? Where the average cost to have a child is eventually free. According to moneytalksnews.com, a website that gives readers financial advice “the average cost for a normal delivery is $2,536, the average cost for a C-section is $4,625 and for the first five months of pregnancy, French women are reimbursed by the state health care system for roughly 70% of their medical costs. After that fifth month, 100% of all medical costs are covered by the French state. This includes general health visits as well as pregnancy-related expenses and even health care for other children in your charge under 6 years of age”.  The overall cost of children varies depending on where you live and the economy and your social state.

 The cost of health care overall due to statistics is better in Europe rather than in the U.S for a great many reasons but, overall, without any health care we would still be stuck in medieval times. 

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