With lockdowns having ended and Covid seemingly out of the heads of many around the world, Americans are still struggling, but not in the way you might think. Rising costs for healthcare is affecting citizens more than ever before making it difficult to even have enough money to bring food to the table.

Already the United States healthcare system isn’t the best when looked into but with the influence of Covid and inflation the US healthcare system has taken a turn for the worse. For example around 4 in 10 Americans said they had put off health care due to costs. This is the highest rate seen in over 20 years. Even more terrifying from Margaret Bell (71) said she put off chemotherapy when seeing the high costs. These few examples already display the urgency to work on our country’s system.

Even with the remaining effects of Covid due to the immense decrease in cases, health systems aren’t able to lean back on the provided relief funding that was in use during Covid-19.

There’s been cuts to Medicare reimbursements and increased expenses to supplies and pharmaceuticals. Health care being covered by Medicaid will create a rise in people being uninsured leading to more expenses. Just to show the importance of insurance in health care according to health.gov uninsured adults are less likely to receive services like preventatives for cancer, diabetes, and many other life threatening issues. Without insurance in some states you may even be charged a fine, for example the tax penalty in New Jersey charges at least $695.

A survey by Deloitte does say that despite employee wages rising—the inflation rates have gotten so high that the larger income can’t even keep up with the new costs. Health care is being especially affected by the inflation seen in September 2022 insurance prices went up by 28% which is higher than the inflation rate (8.2%).

To further add on to these issues there’s been labor shortages in hospitals and other health related offices.  According to Fitch Ratings health care job openings have reached 9.2% which is more than two times the average rate between 2010 and 2019. This was already an issue and Covid had just made it worse. It’s predicted that with the current shortage of physicians, by 2034 it could get up to 124,000 physicians being in short staffing, which includes primary care. Not only is there a shortage in the hospital but because of this there is a shortage in education for upcoming students. Partially due to the wage difference between educational nurses and nurses in hospitals. This should be important to not just the country but for even small schools. This is true because how many people have you heard saying they wanted to be a doctor or nurse. I conducted an online survey and out of 14 people 8 said they wanted to go into a healthcare related school program. With inflation and shortages that may become impossible for many students, crushing their dreams. 

Better healthcare is achievable for the US, and even other countries have already achieved that. While the US spends more on healthcare than other countries it has the highest rate of chronic conditions, and the highest obesity rate. Data from 2020 says life expectancy is even lower in the US than other areas by 3 years, and other data suggests it has dropped further as 2021 rolled in. All of this just validates that this is a nationwide issue, our country spends so much but doesn’t improve for the citizens…