Regardless of political position or background, most people can agree that our current American system of healthcare is in a disastrous place. Care is expensive, hard to access, and convoluted, and there aren't many streamlined, accessible resources to help people navigate this space.

There have been many proposed changes to our healthcare system, and proposed new systems that would hypothetically take the place of our existing one. But what would it really take to see a meaningful improvement?

The Tangled Knot of American Healthcare

Arguably the biggest issue here is that American healthcare is a tangled knot of different systems, resources, and institutions jockeying for power. The end result is that the average patient or consumer has little control over the healthcare they receive or what they pay for it.

Doctors, nurses, hospitals, and other individuals and institutions are bound to follow strict regulations. Available treatments and solutions are similarly bound by laws. The insurance industry is complex and multifaceted, intended to make health care more affordable but perhaps falling short of that goal in many ways.

As a result, there aren't many straightforward, inexpensive solutions for health and medical issues. For example, imagine a person starts showing symptoms associated with mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare and deadly form of cancer that even advanced oncologists sometimes don't understand. If you want to get the best possible treatment for mesothelioma, you'll need to find your way into a dedicated specialist’s office, and you'll also need to work around potential insurance and financial issues. This turns caring for your health into a major uphill battle.

The Futility of Universal Healthcare

Many people in the present have recommended universal health care as the be-all, end-all solution to healthcare woes, but there are several problems with this:

What a Better Healthcare System Might Look Like

So what might a better healthcare system in the United States look like?

Our current healthcare system is complicated, but it's a mistake to assume that a solution needs to be equally complicated. Even a handful of simple tweaks to our existing system, or a streamlined replacement to our existing system, can make a major difference in accessibility, affordability, and quality of care.

Image: Pix4Free/Nick Youngson