Cost is the most challenging factor in healthcare. Reasonableness and affordability of healthcare should be the community's primary concern. A more acceptable cost will ensure better access to healthcare for all. US healthcare spending was 17.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) or $8,507.6 per capita in 2011 (OECD, 2013). The cost of American healthcare depends on the market, including different providers (for-profit, nonprofit, and government-owned facilities) and payers (private for-profits, nonprofit insurance companies, government , self-insured and self-paying). Healthcare spending can be divided into different categories, such as hospital care, outpatient care, pharmaceuticals, public health and administration, etc. The hospital market in the United States is uncoordinated and duplicates specialty care without sufficient volume in most to make procedures accessible (Govindarajan & Ramamurti, 2013). American healthcare is expensive for the following reasons. First, administrative costs are high due to mismanagement among providers and new electronic health record (EHR) implementation, which may reduce wasteful services. It can also help if patients want to go to another hospital where they could easily have another doctor. The EHR will cut the redundancy of these investigations. If 80% of the US population used electronic health records by 2019, approximately $21 billion could be saved. President Obama stated that to save dollars and lives, all Americans will need electronic health records by 2014 (Barton, 2010). The United States has the highest costs for healthcare. The United States provides more health care, more doctor visits, more surgeries, more d... half the paper... a constant fee for each visit to the family doctor, which costs $23 per visit in 2012, while in the United States it cost $89 per visit (www.advisory.com). This indicates that the cost of French healthcare is a quarter of the cost of American healthcare. Summary The United States spends twice as much on healthcare as France, due to the many reasons previously mentioned. The main difference is that the American healthcare system is market-based, while the French healthcare system tends to have a socialized approach. Both countries have a recently reformed system; the United States is trying to control costs without affecting quality, while France is trying to provide more facilities at extra expense. Furthermore, the reform attempts to address the imminent acceleration of high costs related to the increase in demand for healthcare services. Works Cited Electronic Medical Record