Laisha Estevez 

English 110

Prof – Alcala

Cover Letter

As we approach the end of the semester it is time to put your feet down get serious and reflect on everything that you’ve done this semester. This is actually one of the most important times in the semester because this is where you get to look back at where you started and that is when you realize how much better or worse you have gotten since you started. For this essay, I personally think that I did a pretty good job because it wasn’t something that I just chose to write about on a whim. It’s something that I believe is a pretty serious issue in this country and I enjoyed seeing all the random facts that kept popping up as I kept researching things and adding on to my paper. 

For this paper, I believe that I accomplished more than one learning outcome. But the main one that I believe is the most visible as you read this paper is outcome number 6 “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine, and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias”. 

To write my paper even though id already knew a few things about my topic which was “Why is healthcare in the United States so expensive” I still had to do extensive research because some of the things I knew were wrong and I also couldn’t just say something without having proof to back it up because that would be unreliable for many reasons. Now while I may not be the best at doing research this helped me in more than one way because I was always used to just searching things up on Google and just going with the first link that seemed like they knew what they were talking about. But for this kind of research, I was forced out of my comfort zone and I used other sites such as Google Scholar and other long research papers that seemed really boring at first but were actually pretty full of details and facts that helped me better prove my point as the writing progressed. 

Now while I may not have completely done things differently than I usually would in a weird way I enjoyed seeing and using this new information and not just what the first page of a Google search gave me. It got to a point where I was using so many different sites to get different details and facts, that it would have been almost impossible for me to cite them all because it would have almost been like a whole new research paper on its own. 

Now while I did enjoy the finding of this new information it was actually pretty hard to find because you don’t always get what you are looking for on your first try and that is exactly what happened to me. At first, when I was brainstorming what site information and facts I wanted to use I wasn’t getting either what I wanted or what exactly I searched for. On Google Scholar I would write my question and it would give me similar articles that yes talked about healthcare but they went in a completely different direction as to what I searched so it was just the topic being about healthcare but not why it was expensive or why it was so bad but instead would talk about how to get it or things like what it did or why it was so important. So to truly find what I was looking for at first was a hassle but as I kept re-writing my question and putting it in different words I started seeing results and ones that I liked. 

Something that in a way came naturally to me was the way that I expressed myself or my tone. Since the beginning of the semester, I have been trying to leave my old way of writing things and adapt to something that is easier to read and just more exciting in general. I’ve always been the type of writer that could write for days but I could never find a way to make things interesting so I sounded like a book written in the fifteen hundreds. By this, I mean no offense to the writer in the past but let’s be honest about 90% of the books are either pretty boring or hard to read. They are like a hard pill to swallow and one that nobody wants to take. That was my type of writing. Boring and dry. But as the class progressed and I was given permission to express myself as I wished my writing became more interesting less boring and more “Oh yeah that’s something I wouldn’t have a problem reading again if I had to” and so this style just started sticking like old gum on a brand new pair of shoes. 

All in all, I’m pretty stoked about my final draft. Luckily my draft isn’t as different from my final draft as I would have expected because usually it would be like I’d written a whole new paper. The only differences are minor changes and additions or commas dots and quotes but this was just to make it sound better and a little bit more professional since I kind of got carried away and a little too excited while writing. I am proud of this piece because I was able to use charts percentages and actual prices for things since I was talking about supplies and I really enjoyed this because it was not just me saying something and then being like “Oh I just know trust me bro” but I could instead say an article by Yadiya states that Yadiya which makes things more believable. In the end, I really enjoyed “smoking” our health care system and it’s something that I would do again because seriously these prices are absolutely ridiculous.

Health care in the United States

Have you ever noticed how expensive it is to go to the doctor’s office in the United States? Have You ever even BEEN at a hospital or a clinic? Because believe it or not many people haven’t. Why? Well because most people don’t have health insurance and most simply just don’t have the money to pay thousands of dollars for a doctor to look at you for .02 seconds and tell you to take some Tylenol and that it will go away on its own. In the end, the bill for this interaction which was barely an interaction comes out to thousands of dollars just because the doctor had to take two steps and had to open his mouth to say “You’ll be okay”.  Now, In this short essay, I will be doing my best to educate you on WHY health care is so expensive and WHY we are the only ones paying so much in medical bills. But before that here’s a quick fact that blew my mind. Have YOU ever been to the doctor’s or seen in TV shows or movies when the nurses give the patients the pills in that little white cup? Yeah, that paper cup that they use. Guess how much that is? A dollar maybe? A few cents even? NO. It’s ten dollars. Yeah, that’s right TEN WHOLE DOLLARS JUST FOR THE CUP. Not the medicine, Not for them having to bring you the medicine. THE CUP.

There are many reasons as to why healthcare is so expensive in the United States. One of said reasons is the crazy amount of overcharging/overbilling that hospitals or big health corporations like to do. Some of these might be due to over diagnosing or billing for unnecessary services. And since all they send home is a bill with the amount of money that you owe THEY know that YOU won’t know exactly what it is you’re paying for so they like to add a few extra charges for insignificant amounts that end up being big amounts when it is time to pay. One way to get past this trick is to call wherever it was that you were seen by a health provider and ask for an itemized bill. All that this will do is tell you exactly what it is that you are paying for and how much every item was, they also can’t say no to this request. In the end, this could potentially save you thousands of dollars because, with this new bill, they can’t add random charges without labeling what it was and maybe even what it was used for. 

Hospitals also like to do what I call overtesting. This happens when doctors start ordering an absurd amount of tests like CT scans or MRIs which are expensive tests that most of the time aren’t even needed because all you had was a headache. In the end, these tests would also end up adding a significant amount to your overall bill. Yet sometimes it’s not even about the testing being done or the people that are doing them. It’s about what is being used for these tests, like what machines you are put in or if they prescribe you with whatever new drug is in the market and is said to be more effective than the “old” medication. This is just all the extra stuff that these public or private health providers like to add to make extra cash because in the US taking people’s money and possibly their lives is more important than getting them the help that they need. 

There is one more thing called administrative spending. Essentially what this is, is the money that goes towards paying the people that get manage and take care of supplies. For example, hospitals require many supplies to keep running, and to get these supplies you need people. These people are who order and make sure you get the supplies and keep track of what you get what you need and when you need it. This process may take many people to do it and everybody needs to get paid. So this is administrative spending. It’s just paying the people that “work behind the curtains”. 

In general, hospitals like to overuse and overprice everything. Going through a list of resources ranging from what was used and about how much you are charged for it just by scanning through it, it’s more than obvious that these people aren’t here to help. In an article written by MBA Medical, they put out a list of the most common items that are used in each hospital visit by any individual. These items were things like medications, tissues, gloves, etc. For a single pair of gloves hospitals were charging 53 dollars every time somebody took off and put on a new pair to treat the patient. For a box of tissues, it was 8 dollars and the patients probably weren’t even using the whole thing. The use of a cuff to take your blood pressure was 20 dollars just to put and take off of your arm, and an IV bag which is basically salted water was almost a whopping 800 dollars. Like seriously, and they wonder why people prefer to DIE at home than take a trip to the hospital even if they are in a life-or-death situation. 

Its no wonder other countries make fun of the US healthcare system. Or just the US in general because let’s be serious this is just ridiculous at this point. Why are we paying hundreds of dollars for something that barely takes cents or maybe even a few dollars to make and buy? This is not a cooner store or a big corporate chain this is what keeps us alive. So why do these people think that buying something for a few bucks and re-selling it for hundreds of dollars is okay? For example, take insulin. It is used to treat some types of diabetes and it only takes about 2 to 4 dollars to make and thats per vile for providers but for the users they charge upwards to 250 dollars and that’s also PER vial. In other countries, the price for insulin is no more than 20 to 22 dollars, and that is only in Chile which is the second country with the highest price after the US. Then there’s Mexico and Japan with 16$ and 14$ and then the list goes on and on until we get to the very last turkey with a price of 2.64$. It is absolutely ridiculous how badly the United States just prays on its resident’s downfall. 

So if the US is soo bad what about the rest of the world? Good question. In most countries, and just FYI this might give Americans a heart attack, health care is either really cheap or free to the public. Yup, you heard right, FREE. Or at least kind of free but lets be honest to the american eye its free. This is because most countries have something called a single-payer system. This is just a “financing model where one entity collects all health care fees and pays for all health care costs” and the patients don’t have to pay for anything. It’s like when you and your siblings get sick and your mom collects all your hospital bills at no cost to you. This in some countries is also open to the public so if you were to visit one of these places like for example brazil if anything was to happen to you and you for that reason ended up in the hospital you wouldn’t have to pay anything because that “entity” will collect your bill along with everybody else’s and pay for it. But don’t get me wrong most of these are in one way or another funded by taxpayers. But who wouldn’t rather pay it through taxes than paying thousands of dollars out of pocket? And if your visit was long and severe enough maybe even millions. 

While not all other countries offer free health care it is extremely cheap like for example in the United Kingdom. They use about 18% of a citizen’s income tax towards health care which is only about 4.5% of their income. And all their visits and all their treatments are covered all through this so they don’t have to give a dime out of their pickets and if they ever do it’s really cheap. Canadians also have mandatory public insurance which covers most of the two medical costs which are hospitals and physicians’ offices. 

Even though the United States is considered one of the if not THE top and most advanced countries, we are still missing many essential things that in a way set us back and make other countries question our decisions. And in a way, they are right to question some of the things we do and practices we have in place because honestly, they don’t make sense. If other smaller and less developed countries can do it then why can’t we? But that’s a question for another day because if we start diving into all the things that the US has failed in it will take us a few decades. But it is extremely alarming that most of the population would rather die at home and be happy than go try and do something to prevent this in a hospital.