Final answer:
Bradley and Taylor suggest that inefficiencies in the healthcare system are responsible for high costs and suboptimal outcomes, highlighting the need for a balance between quality, access, and cost.
Step-by-step explanation:
Bradley and Taylor have identified healthcare system inefficiencies as the unnamed culprit behind high health care costs and poor outcomes.
In the largely private U.S. health insurance and healthcare delivery system, there exists a paradox of providing high-quality care and producing life-saving innovations while struggling to control soaring costs and to ensure basic medical care for all citizens.
The U.S. situation is contrasted with other countries which manage to maintain lower costs and more equal access but often lag in providing rapid access to the latest medical care.
Ultimately, the challenge is to establish a healthcare system that offers an optimal balance between quality, access, and cost.
This balance is particularly important for organizations around the world seeking to bring down the cost of health care and increase the quality of the care given.
Factors such as the high number of uninsured Americans and the use of emergency rooms for treatment—an extremely costly form of healthcare—have significantly contributed to rising costs.
Insurance companies often exacerbate the issue by charging higher prices to or denying coverage for those deemed high risk due to pre-existing medical conditions.
Thus, the quest for a more balanced healthcare continues, with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) having attempted to address some of these concerns.