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Health care reform history essay
Healthcare reform over the years research paper
Healthcare reform over the years research paper
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For decades, one of the many externalities that the government is trying to solve is the rising costs of healthcare. "Rising healthcare costs have hurt American competitiveness, forced too many families into bankruptcy to get their families the care they need, and driven up our nation's long-term deficit" ("Deficit-Reducing Healthcare Reform," 2014). The United States national government plays a major role in organizing, overseeing, financing, and more so than ever delivering health care (Jaffe, 2009). Though the government does not provide healthcare directly, it serves as a financing agent for publicly funded healthcare programs through the taxation of citizens. The total share of the national publicly funded health spending by various governments amounts to 4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, GDP (Jaffe, 2009). By 2019, government spending on Medicare and Medicaid is expected to rise to 6 percent and 12 percent by 2050 (Jaffe, 2009). The percentages, documented from the Health Policy Brief (2009) by Jaffe, are from Medicare and Medicaid alone. The rapid rates are not due to increase of enrollment but growth in per capita costs for providing healthcare, especially via Medicare. New Proposal During the study of various reforms that were proposed and denied, both the GOP and Democrats attempted to find a balance that would guarantee the success of their proposals. Years of research, growing ideologies, political views and disregard for the country's constitution sparked an array of alternatives to solve the country's healthcare spending. The expenditure of US healthcare dollars was mostly due to hospital reimbursements, which constitute to 30% (Longest & Darr, 2008). During the research for alternatives, the gr... ... middle of paper ... ...ll have to provide nutrition facts to help communities as a whole become healthy or continue their healthy habits. This means the economy will have fewer people covered by government-sponsored health plans. The amount of coverage required to cover all the uninsured will not be enough. According to Daniel Fisher (2012), the laws that were in place provided coverage for the poor, elderly and even about 60% of Americans who get their insurance through their employer. The sole purpose for the healthcare reform is to fix a problem that each year costs extreme amounts of money. The Healthcare reform act is to help with the economic issue of people merely staying at their jobs just so they can continue with insurance coverage. The rising cost and the complexity of healthcare systems is an imperative factor that should concern both businesses and individual
One of the most controversial topics in the United States in recent years has been the route which should be undertaken in overhauling the healthcare system for the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. It is important to note that the goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make healthcare affordable; it provides low-cost, government-subsidized insurance options through the State Health Insurance Marketplace (Amadeo 1). Our current president, Barack Obama, made it one of his goals to bring healthcare to all Americans through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. This plan, which has been termed “Obamacare”, has come under scrutiny from many Americans, but has also received a large amount of support in turn for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include a decrease in insurance discrimination on the basis of health or gender and affordable healthcare coverage for the millions of uninsured. The opposition to this act has cited increased costs and debt accumulation, a reduction in employer healthcare coverage options, as well as a penalization of those already using private healthcare insurance.
The aim of affordable care act (ACA) was to extend health insurance coverage to around 15% of US population who lack it. These include people with no coverage from their employers and don’t have coverage by US health programs like Medicaid (Retrieved from, https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/). To achieve this, the law required all Americans to have health insurance which is a reason of controversy because, it was inappropriate intrusion of government into the massive health care industry and insult to personal liberty. To make health care more affordable subsidies are offered and the cost of the insurance was supposed to be reduced by bringing younger, healthier people to the health insurance system. This could be controversial, if older, sicker people who need the coverage most enter the market but younger group decline to do so. The insurance pool will be unbalanced and the cost of coverage will rise correspondingly.
On a global scale, the United States is a relatively wealthy country of advanced industrialization. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is among the costliest, spending close to 18% of gross domestic product (GDP) towards funding healthcare (2011). No universal healthcare coverage is currently available. United States healthcare is currently funded through private, federal, state, and local sources. Coverage is provided privately and through the government and military. Nearly 85% of the U.S. population is covered to some extent, leaving a population of close to 48 million without any type of health insurance. Cost is the primary reason for lack of insurance and individuals foregoing medical care and use of prescription medications.
Healthcare has been a topic of discussion with the majority of the country. Issues with insurance coverage, rising costs, limited options to gain coverage, and the quality of healthcare have become concerns for law makers, healthcare providers and the general public. Some of those concerns were alleviated with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, but new concerns have developed with problems that have occurred in the implementation of the new law. The main concerns of the country are if the Affordable Care Act will be able to overcome the issues that plagued the old healthcare system, the cost of the program, and how will the new law affect the quality of the health delivery system.
Twenty-first century health care system in United States is not only complex, but also profoundly different from "what it used to be." The changes are numerous and represent the major shifts involved in moving from protection and delivery plan, based primarily on what the patient wanted, to a skeptically managed healthcare system. The American health care system has seen drastic changes within couple generations and it continues to evolve.
However, our system is based on money. The more money you have to spend, the better medical services you will receive. ?According to the Bureau of Labor education at the university of main (2003), America spends more money oh health care than any other nation, "$4,178 per capita on health care in 1998?, compared to the average of $1,783. (BLE., 2003, p.23). Still an estimated "42.5 million Americans are living without health insurance", which prevents them from receiving medical treatment. (Climan, Scharff, 2003, p.33). The numbers of un-insured Americans continue to rise. Tim Middleton (2002) states, ?insurance premiums grow at a rate greater than wages,? when you have a low-income job. (¶ 9). With our current economy recession, taxes are rising and small business employers are unable to purchase health plans for their employees. Employees are realizing that they are unable to gain insurance from their jobs and beginning to speak out about the high price of health care.
In order to make ones’ health care coverage more affordable, the nation needs to address the continually increasing medical care costs. Approximately more than one-sixth of the United States economy is devoted to health care spending, such as: soaring prices for medical services, costly prescription drugs, newly advanced medical technology, and even unhealthy lifestyles. Our system is spending approximately $2.7 trillion annually on health care. According to experts, it is estimated that approximately 20%-30% of that spending (approx. $800 billion a year) appears to go towards wasteful, redundant, or even inefficient care.
There is an ongoing debate on the topic of how to fix the health care system in America. Some believe that there should be a Single Payer system that ensures all health care costs are covered by the government, and the people that want a Public Option system believe that there should be no government interference with paying for individual’s health care costs. In 1993, President Bill Clinton introduced the Health Security Act. Its goal was to provide universal health care for America. There was a lot of controversy throughout the nation whether this Act was going in the right direction, and in 1994, the Act died. Since then there have been multiple other attempts to fix the health care situation, but those attempts have not succeeded. The Affordable Care Act was passed in the senate on December 24, 2009, and passed in the house on March 21, 2010. President Obama signed it into law on March 23 (Obamacare Facts). This indeed was a step forward to end the debate about health care, and began to establish the middle ground for people in America. In order for America to stay on track to rebuild the health care system, we need to keep going in the same direction and expand our horizons by keeping and adding on to the Affordable Care Act so every citizen is content.
Healthcare Policy has been through many ups and downs over the years. The first United States legislature to involve healthcare dates back to 1798, when “The Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen” was adopted. This approach is not very different in how healthcare works today. The act called for a 200 cent tax on seamen in order to pay for their health care. But it wasn’t until 1912, when President Theodore Roosevelt campaigned on a platform to adopt a single national health service. Finally a program called Medicaid was adopted to insure low income families, and in 1966, Medicare was adopted, guaranteeing health care for those over the age of 65 who paid into the system. Finally, The Affordable Health Care for America Act was introduced in 2009, and while it has changed and been revised a few times since then, it is th...
One of the hottest issues nowadays in the United States is the rising continuously rising trend of health care expenditures. There are heavy debates about the role of government and insurance companies and the possible solutions. However, little can be heard about the experiences and outcomes of the previous attempts that aimed to restrict health spending.
Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest binding documents in history, and it is still held sacred by physicians to help the ill, to preserve a patient's privacy, but most importantly it is taken by doctors swearing to practice medicine ethically. Practicing medicine ethically might have been very sacred centuries ago, but unfortunately it is not the case in today's society especially in the United States. Doctors in the United States face more than just high education costs, liability insurance payments, and long hours of work just to stay on top of the latest advancement in medical technology, but many of them also have to deal every day with insurance companies that do not want to cover their patients recommended treatments. A doctor's duty is to help people and practice medicine ethically, but that is impossible with the chaos that is happening in the American health care industry and a serious reform is needed such as the accepting the Patient Protection Affordability Care Act. The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23rd, 2010 by Barrack Obama, but some do not agree with the "obamacare" are on the fast track to repeal the bill. The law would focuses on the health care reform in the United States by providing better coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, improving prescription drug coverage, but most importantly giving every person access to recommended preventative services without cost. (Department of Health and Human Services)
Health care reform is needed for four reasons. First, health care costs are rising. In 2011, the average cost for a family of four increased 7.3%, to $19,393. By 2030, payroll taxes will only cover 38% of Medicare costs. Second, health care reform is needed to improve the quality of care. Because of these reasons, President Barack Obama signed The Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, into law on March 23, 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2012. The goal is to give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance, and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the U.S. The Affordable Care Act contains ten titles that span over 1000 pages, but most of its key provisions are in first Title; The first title is about 140 pages long. The purpose of the law if to expand the affordability, quality, and availability of private and public health insurance through consumer protections, taxes, insurance exchanges, and other reforms.
The U.S. expends far more on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet we get fewer benefits, less than ideal health outcomes, and a lot of dissatisfaction manifested by unequal access, the significant numbers of uninsured and underinsured Americans, uneven quality, and unconstrained wastes. The financing of healthcare is also complicated, as there is no single payer system and payment schemes vary across payors and providers.
With the United Nations listing health care as natural born right and the escalating cost of health care America has reached a debatable crisis. Even if you do have insurance it's a finical strain on most families.
As of 2013 data, the US per capita government expenditure was $4307 while total per capita expenditure on health spending was $9146, which is 17.1 percent of the GDP (2013) for the total expenditure on health. The annual rate of growth in per capita government spending on healthcare has been roughly 5.1 percent over the past thirty years (WHO, 2015). This rate of spending on health care growing faster than the economy for many years creates challenges ...