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    Home > Active Ingredient News > Drugs Articles > The study says the uneven distribution of medical resources in the United States is increasing

    The study says the uneven distribution of medical resources in the United States is increasing

    • Last Update: 2016-07-08
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Source: Xinhua news agency, July 6, 2016, Xinhua news agency, Washington, D.C a new issue of the American Journal of Health Affairs published a study that said that in recent years, the inequality in the access of Americans to medical services has increased At present, the rich in the United States occupy most of the medical resources, and their health status is significantly better than that of other classes Data show that in 2012, the richest fifth of the U.S spent 43% more on health care than the poorest fifth ($1743 per capita), and 23% more than the middle-income class ($1082 per capita) In order to find out the long-term trend of medical expenditure of all levels in the United States, researchers from Harvard University Medical School and other institutions analyzed the data of 22 national surveys conducted in the past decades They found that the first turning point of the trend was in the mid-20th century In 1965, the U.S government began to implement Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly and the disabled Before that, the rich in the United States enjoyed about twice as much medical resources as the poor; the implementation of the medical insurance plan and the medical assistance plan made the distribution of medical resources in the United States more even, and the gap between the rich and the poor in this area was rapidly narrowing, and almost disappeared for a time In the 21st century, new changes have taken place in this trend From 2004 to 2012, as the growth of national medical expenditure slowed down, the medical resources consumed by the richest fifth of the population in the United States increased by 19.7%, 57% faster than that consumed by the middle class; during this period, the medical resources consumed by the poorest fifth of the population in the United states decreased by 3.7% instead of increasing The distribution of medical resources tends to be unequal again If the family of three is calculated, the annual income threshold of the richest fifth of the population in this study is $100000; the annual income of the poorest fifth of the population is less than $22000; 60% of the American families are between the two figures, which is called the middle class The researchers defined the total amount of medical resources consumed by individuals as the total expenditure on medical care, including the expenditure of insurance companies, personal expenditure and the part covered by government finance If the scope of the study is reduced to a specific medical service, the results are very similar For example, in terms of the number of outpatient visits, the richest people in the United States were about 40% more than others in 2012 The researchers attributed the results to a series of complex factors, including the widening income gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, the slow recovery of the economic situation of the middle class and the poor after the economic crisis in 2007, and the policies of increasing CO payment and deductible of commercial medical insurance "While poor and middle-class patients in the United States have to give up some critical treatment, the rich are receiving unnecessary and even harmful treatment," said David simmerstein, a professor at Hunter College of New York City University, one of the authors of the paper The increase in the uneven distribution of medical resources is also reflected in the imbalance of mortality among all classes At the same time, life expectancy in the United States is far behind countries that allocate health care to people's needs rather than to their affluence The study highlights the need for a national health insurance system to ensure that all Americans have access to the health care they need  
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