“A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.”
-- Spanish proverb

DIFFERENT HEALTH CARE MODELS OVERSEAS; POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS AT HOME?


"At their core, Americans all want the same basic things: a quality education for their children, a good job so they can provide for their families, healthcare and affordable prescription drugs, security during retirement, a strongly equipped military and national security."
Ruben Hinojosa

Introduction | Task | Countries | Roles | Process | Presentations | Compare and Contrast | Evaluation | Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Every soceity makes decisions about how it allocates its limited resources and everyone wants "a piece of the pie." To a scientist, for example, the priority is to invest in scientific research and and attendant technology; to an educator, the investment is in schools and students; to the solider, in military hardware and training; to a doctor, it is health care infrastructure, personnel, and services.

Health care. In the United States health care costs have skyrocketed in the last two decades and prompted a crisis where some 47 millions Americans lack health insurance, even as we as a nation have never lived longer nor been more healthy. Surely an unhealthy country is one that cannot prosper economically, but there is a limit on what Americans (or any people) will pay for health care. In contrast, there is no limit on what hospital administrators and public health officials could spend on health care, but the money allocated will always be negotiated through the political process -- and that money will have limits There simply are too many other worthy areas where resources also require investment. Education. Infrastructure. Social secutiry. Defense. Unemployment insurance. Etc etc etc.

But another fact is clear: Americans spend more than any other nation in the world on health care and receive less for their money. Almost everyone in America agrees the health care system is in crisis, but almost nobody agrees on how to reform it.

This does not imply there there is a surfeit of health care reform proposals put forth by academics or politicians in America. But each proposal that seems to try and tackle the hard issues of better paying for expensive and extensive health care services is shot full of holes seemingly the moment it is raised; the health care debate is rife with polemical and ideological contention, and the result (so far) is gridlock. Little changes. But in this project we shall look abroad and examine how other coutries seek to get the most for their health care money and provide for the health of their populations. Perhaps there is much to be learned overseas that might help us.

TASK

You will be assigned a group that will examine the health care system in a particular country.

COUNTRIES

For the purposes of this project, you must choose from one of two groups

COUNTRIES:

  1. Great Britain: A World Leader in Preventive Medicine
  2. Japan: Universal Coverage, No Gatekeepers
  3. Germany: A Popular, Largely Market-Based System
  4. Taiwan: A New System They Copied from Others
  5. Switzerland: Before Reforms, Its System Resembled Ours
  6. Mexico: Three Seperate Systems and Inequity
  7. Haiti: Catch-as-Catch-Can Dysfunction

ROLES

In your group, you will adopt one of the below roles

COUNTRIES:

  1. Leader/Speaker: Direct other roles, inspire performances, and deliver final presentation to peers.
  2. Writer/Printer: Work with researcher and deliver borchures for each student on day of presentation.
  3. Researcher/Writer: Work with writer and leader to do the heavy lifting of researching topic.
  4. Technology Specialist: Make all graphics, PPT, and brief video about country and its health care system to be uploaded to Youtube and played within PPT.

 PROCESS

This project shall progress thusly:

  1. Find out what country you will research and role you shall play in this scenario.
  2. Meet with the members of your team and take the time to see your partners in this project and what role they will play.
  3. Conduct research for your role and help your group to complete project.
  4. Complete your role and help make sure group effort is ready on project due date.
  5. Come together as a team to put forward a joint effort and deliver to Mr. Geib and class an effective, consice, and comprehensive presentation about your country's health care system.
  6. Answer any questions from teacher and/or peers.

Graphically, your job as a group is this:

PRESENTATIONS

Your group will need to have the following ready on project due date:

    1. PowerPoint for class delivery
    2. Introductory video (text, images, and audio) loaded to youtube and also inserted into PPT
    3. Brochure for each student in class highlighting the main ideas in presentation
    4. Effective presentation of content to class
    5. Competent and knowledgable answers to questions.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Immediately after your group's presentation I will show a brief video clip by experts who analyze that country's health care system. I will compare and contrast that presentation with yours, and we shall see how closely they align. We will examine the strengths and weakeness of each, and this will be important with respect to your final grade in this assignment.

EVALUATION

Be advised beforehand of the individual rubric for this project, as well as this group rubric; you will be responsible for filling out both an individual and group rubric.

CONCLUSION

How to pay for the health needs of an entire country is an enormously complex endeavor. What is fair to citizens with regards to affordable and equitable services? What is fair to health care professionals and their compensation? How much responsibility does each of us owe to our neighbor? How much responsibility must one take for paying for oneself? How much do the "rich" owe the "poor"? These are not easy questions to answer, and all of them are intensely political. As technology advances (MRI machines, etc.) and science develops new drugs and therapies, costs can only continue to rise and these questions will only become more trenchant and urgent --

-- the final and omnipresent question is then the following: What might be the best way to reform our health care system?

HEALTH CARE CRISIS

Difficult Choices, No Easy Answers

"One in seven Americans, including more than 8 million children, does not have even basic healthcare coverage."
Dave Reichert

"It is the potential for economic growth that provides the basis for the development of countries, for bringing to people essential goods and services, such as water to drink and facilities for healthcare."
Lee R. Raymond

"Financial literacy is an issue that should command our attention because many Americans are not adequately organizing finances for their education, healthcare and retirement."
Ron Lewis

NOT copyrighted - SPREAD THE WEALTH!

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."  
-- Thomas Jefferson