Healthcare Systems and Their Structure

Constantly under review and scrutiny, the issues on healthcare Systems have become international. Made up mainly of organizations and individuals, these healthcare structural systems are designed to meet a target population's need for health care. On an international level, there is a diverse variety of health care systems. In some countries the planning of the health care systems are market driven and participated in by the private sector. In other countries the systems are composed of government and non-government entities such as religious groups, trade unions charities and or other coordinative bodies that are centrally run and planned, to enable the delivery of healthcare services to the populations they target. In other words, health care planning has evolved. According to a World Health Organization report in 2000, the main goals of health systems are the ability to provide a responsive health service alongside considerations of fair financial contributions. In order to appraise overall health care systems, a proposed two-dimensional approach was conceived. The first dimension consists of equity and the second is composed of efficiency, quality and acceptability. Several proposals have come from the Senate in the United States and the White House. Health care system issues according to President Obama are issues that should be addressed immediately and placed them on a top priority list. A universal health care system does not exist or is practiced in the United States. Some countries subsidize their universal healthcare directly from government coffers. This kind of universal healthcare is called socialized medicine, which is a combination of private and public delivery systems, with most countries spending public funds for this service delivery. Government taxes plays the role of funding this system supplemented and strengthened with private payments. The World Health Organization (WHO) report of 2000 ranks each member country's health care system. Discussions on the positive and negative aspects of replacing health care systems with insurance systems use this report's quotation. However, the WHO has remarked that as ranking healthcare systems is a complex task, these ranking tables will no longer be produced. Infant mortality and life expectancy are two main variables that are used in the ranking. Out of 198 countries, Canada ranks thirtieth and the US ranks thirty seventh. The World Health Organization ranks France, San Marino, Italy, Andorra, Singapore, Malta, Spain, Austria, Oman and Japan as the world's top ten. With the founding of the UN (United Nations), there was planning and discussion on the need for a single entity to serve, observe and assess global health care system trends. Thus the World Health Organization was formed in 1948 on April 7th with headquarters based in Geneva, Switzerland. Annually the WHO is recognized by the celebration of a World Health Day. The WHO is the coordinative and directive authority for United Nations' member countries individual health systems. Member countries of the United Nations are allowed WHO membership through the acceptance of the WHO constitution. To date there are a total of 198 member nations participating in WHO programs.