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Health Care Reform

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United States

Main article: Health care reform in the United States

Health care reform in the United States

Healthcare reform in the US
Debate over reform
History

Latest enacted legislation
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Senate bill - H.R. 3590)
Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872)

preceding legislation
Social Security Amendments of 1965
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (1986)
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996)
Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (2003)
Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (2005)

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See also: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Maximum Out-of-Pocket Premium as Percentage of Family Income (Source: CRS)
In the United States, the debate regarding healthcare reform includes questions of a right to health care, access, fairness, sustainability, quality and amounts spent by government. The mixed public-private health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, with health care costing more per person than in any other nation, and a greater portion of gross domestic product (GDP) is spent on it than in any other United Nations member state except for East Timor (Timor-Leste).[1] A study of international health care spending levels in the year 2000, published in the health policy journal Health Affairs, found that while the U.S. spends more on health care than other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the use of health care services in the U.S. is below the OECD median by most measures. The

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