moving forward

I think one of the biggest things that struck me as I read the article is that no system is perfect. Here in the US, as we struggle with our own system, we frequently look at other systems especially ones like in the UK and Canada which have a national health system as ideals for own healthcare system to move towards, but when we do this we forget that with each system comes problems. Each country no matter what healthcare system has trouble dealing with immigrants, illegal or legal but still trying to be integrated into the new system. Many people go without healthcare, and frequently health insurance for a variety of reasons. Some people can't afford it, some people don't know how to access it, some people don't know how to apply for insurance, or maybe even how to correctly apply for a new citizenship. This shows several inherent problems. I understand that especially in today's world countries cannot support all the people that may want to immigrate into their country, but we do need to create easier more effective systems for people to attempt to apply for citizenship. There should also be a similarly easy and efficient process to apply for health insurance. Making an application so difficult to read that one needs a Master's level education to correctly fill out the form is also a type of cherry picking just like screening for chronic disease or previous injury. Second issue, I am unsure how to deal with the problem of people choosing to move into a country, and either not applying for citizenship or having applied and not received approval still choosing to stay.

Finally my most important issue is access to healthcare. People need healthcare, whether they are rich or poor, insured or not, and citizen or not. When people fall through the crack in the insurance system, in the healthcare system and even in the government system it creates a major issue. We have seen in the US that hospitals are struggling with people coming into the ER because they know they can receive healthcare there. Then the hospital is left with unpaid bills, and frequently lack the beds for other patients. Maybe a potential way to try to start working on the issue would be to create a system similar to ones in other countries which offer physicians benefits for the number of primary care patients they see, but instead offer physicians benefits for seeing the uninsured or non- citizens in their primary care clinics in exchange for dropping their fee or perhaps creating a payment plan for the patients that takes into account their financial status or potentially other ways they can pay. I believe I read a newspaper article about some physician and other professionals in the US who worked on a barter system for services. This way patients can still be seen in the appropriate healthcare facilities, and there is less chance of people sliding through the cracks.