Do you enjoy paying medical bills? Healthcare accounts for about 1/6 of the entire economy, more than any other industry. Researchers find that the spending on health care totals about $2.5 trillion which is about 17.5% of America’s gross domestic product: a measure of the value of all goods and services produced in the United States (New Health Insurance). It covers money paid to health care providers such as hospitals, outpatient centers, veterans’ affairs and other clinics, doctor and dentist practices, physical therapists, nursing homes, home health services and on-site care at places such as schools and work sites. Also included are retail sales of prescription and nonprescription drugs, premiums paid to health insurers, and revenues of makers of medical devices, surgical equipment and durable medical equipment such as eyeglasses, hearing aids and wheelchairs. It also counts out-of-pocket payments by consumers for health insurance premiums, deductibles and co-payments, along with costs not covered by insurance. Healthcare is one of the biggest economic problems Americans are facing. Medical care and health insurance expenses are impacting the lives of many Americans today. The focus problem, which once was uninsured Americans inability to pay for their medical care expenses are no longer a problem that is affecting only those who are uninsured, but is also steadily becoming a problem for those with health insurance. The problems of health care are affecting many American people: the uninsured/underinsured and insured, the unemployed and working, children and retirees, single individuals and families, men, women and small businesses. The list goes on. These problems can be solved in a dramatic reform to socialized healthcare. ...
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...t those people will benefit from socialized healthcare but just because they lack the motivation to sustain employment does not mean they do not deserve medical care. You also have to consider the people that are unable to work. They deserve medical attention of the same sort as anyone else who is employed.
Although some people are against socialized healthcare because of their misguided conception of the American dream, need to feel superior to others, and belief that it creates government dependency, the need and benefit of this reform outweighs those claims. We can still be America with a different healthcare system. The want to feel superior to another is what causes inequalities to our country and its policies. Government decency is not something new but it won’t be encouraged by socialized health care and is not an original ideal of someone who is unemployed.
The United States spends vast amounts on its healthcare, while falling short of achieving superiority over other developed nations. One cannot overlook that the deepening recession has left many without jobs and therefore lacking health insurance. According to Fairhall and Steadman, (2009), even though the recession is hard on all, it is worse on the uninsured due to health care and insurance cost rising faster than incomes. Nevertheless, even those with jobs are lacking in health insurance due to employers, who provide insurance, are increasingly dropping their sponsored insurance. Many find that purchasing a health policy or paying for medical care out-of-pocket is cost prohibitive. “Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed Americans has increased by 3.6 million,” (Fairhall & Steadman, 2009). In 2009 it was stated that approximately 46 million Americans were uninsured, however not all of that number is due to the inability to afford coverage. According to a 2009 story written by Christopher Weaver of Kaiser Health News, 43% of that number should be classified as “voluntarily” uninsured. This subset of uninsured Americans consist of nearly half being young and healthy; therefo...
Healthcare professionals want only to provide the best care and comfort for their patients. In today’s world, advances in healthcare and medicine have made their task of doing so much easier, allowing previously lethal diseases to be diagnosed and treated with proficiency and speed. A majority of people in the United States have health insurance and enjoy the luxury of convenient, easy to access health care services, with annual checkups, preventative care, and their own personal doctor ready to diagnose and provide treatment for even the most trivial of symptoms. Many of these people could not imagine living a day without the assurance that, when needed, medical care would not be available to themselves and their loved ones. However, millions of American citizens currently live under these unimaginable conditions, going day to day without the security of frequent checkups, prescription medicine, or preventative medicines that could prevent future complications in their health. Now with the rising unemployment rates due to the current global recession, even more Americans are becoming uninsured, and the flaws in the United States’ current healthcare system are being exposed. In order to amend these flaws, some are looking to make small changes to fix the current healthcare system, while others look to make sweeping changes and remodel the system completely, favoring a more socialized, universal type of healthcare system. Although it is certain that change is needed, universal healthcare is not the miracle cure that will solve the systems current ailments. Universal healthcare should not be allowed to take form in America as it is a menace to the capitalist principle of a free market, threatens to put a stranglehold on for-...
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 recent years, the number of Americans who are uninsured has reached over 45 million citizens, with millions more who only have the very basic of insurance, effectively under insured. With the growing budget cuts to medicaid and the decreasing amount of employers cutting back on their health insurance options, more and more americans are put into positions with poor health care or no access to it at all. At the heart of the issue stems two roots, one concerning the morality of universal health care and the other concerning the economic effects. Many believe that health care reform at a national level is impossible or impractical, and so for too long now our citizens have stood by as our flawed health-care system has transformed into an unfixable mess. The good that universal healthcare would bring to our nation far outweighs the bad, however, so, sooner rather than later, it is important for us to strive towards a society where all people have access to healthcare.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, beginning this year Medicaid will expand eligibility to include all uninsured individuals under the age of 65 whose incomes fall at or below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, or about $32,500 for a family of four. However, the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law also allowed states more flexibility concerning what parts of the ACA they can implement and said that those same states would not lose federal funding for their existing programs. This result would leave the decision to opt out of the law's provision into the hands of state legislators. While twenty-six states have chosen to expand healthcare coverage, twenty-one states have not and four have yet to make a decision. The state of Florida is among those not seeking to expand coverage and that decision alone could cost Florida millions of dollars a year in tax penalties. As conservative and liberal state lawmakers square off into a maelstrom of debate over whether Medicaid should cover more people, thousands of uninsured Floridians will be caught in the crossfire.
The idea of peddling the bogus notion that the health care reform bill and other related policies are amounting to socialism lacks basis. The only thing that is happening is that the reform is meant to build on our existing private health insurance system and nothing new is being done behind the scenes as it is being alleged by the critics.
Since the 60s, government budgets have been influenced by the need to finance healthcare especially the cost of Medicare and Medicaid benefits. According to CMS’ National Health Expenditure Projections , total health care expenditures have grown by an average of 2.5 percentage points faster per year than the nation‘s Gross Domestic Product. For about 60 percent of workers who receive some form of health care coverage from their employers, the cost of their health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses have increased significantly faster than their own wages; and between 1999 and 2008, both average health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for medications, and co-insura...
In today’s society, there is growing sentiment that our government should provide a “socialized” type of universal medicine for the masses; that the onus to provide healthcare should no longer be on the individual or business. I posit that entrusting our healthcare to a government that can barely manage itself is misguided; that even if The United States could successfully implement a system of socialized medicine the economic and medical hardships this would cause to so many would far outweigh the benefits to a relative few. Although socialized medicine appears to provide adequate healthcare for each person, regardless of economic status, in reality this flawed and expensive system penalizes everyone associated with it. It will cause wide spread economic distress, a marked increase in taxes, and will severely limit access to care.
American people look at their insurance bills, co-pays and drug costs, and can't understand why they continue to increase. The insured should consider all of these reasons before getting upset. In 2004, employee health care premiums increased over 11 percent, four times more than the rate of inflation. In 2003, premiums rose 10.1 percent and in 2002 they rose 15 percent. Employee spending for coverage increased 126 percent between 2000 and 2004. Those increases were lower than expected. (National Coalition on Health Care, 2005, Facts on health care costs). Premiums have risen five times faster than workers wages, on average. If medical spending continues to rise by just two percent more than personal income, by 2040 Medicare and Medicaid would hit 18.5 percent of the gross domestic product, leading the federal deficit to be 20.7 of the gross domestic product. (Melcer, R., 2004, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Rising Costs of healthcare pose huge challenges).
People will at least once, probably more, have to deal with insurance companies. For many, this typically results in a long, and heated struggle of figuring out what is covered, and what is not. It is also usually accompanied by negotiating something to be covered, and giving justification of why it should. Almost anyone will agree that handling insurance companies is as bad as pulling teeth. This is said to be true even when the medical diagnoses are concrete in the social construct of society. Many insurances will not cover things as dyer as cancer. If this is so commonly believed, imagine how it is for the illness that are not concrete; illnesses such as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and schizophrenia. All phrases that are commonly heard in media, but widely accepted as untrue illnesses, or educated
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.
My major is Health Science (Health Policy) and with this major, it is so broad that I believe I can do many things with it. I believe this major focuses on administration jobs whether it is at hospital, clinical, or school settings. By writing this legislation and acknowledging these steps of implementing, it will help with my future job such as administrating in a school setting in terms of providing healthier food and beverages and/or physical activity. My other option would to work in hospital setting under pediatric or my route could be completely different and work with adults and create or implement a policy that promote health and wellness. I am unsure but I do see myself walking towards that route. However, my focuses are on children
Currently, I do not have any diagnosed health problems, however I there are a large amount of diseases that run in my family, which puts me at greater risk to contracting them. As a result, I should be taking preventative measures to insure that I will have longevity and overall health wellness. Therefore my health change behavior goals are to workout consistently, and to eat less processed snacks and pastries. While these seem like simple changes , in the past I have struggled with staying consistent with my goals because I do not make time for them and I tend to forget the benefits in the process. I have chosen these specific goals because they fit in with each other and will ultimately help me to achieve my desired outcome which is weight
Universal health care is medical insurance provided to all the residents of a country by their government. Out of all the major industrial countries, The United States is the only country without a universal health care system. In 2010, President Barack Obama signed a health care reform law making it illegal to be uninsured in America, which is a major step towards it. Universal Health Care should be mandatory in America because it gives everyone an opportunity to receive more equal care, the overall health of the population would increase and current insurance plans are unaffordable for many Americans.
Employment Insurance is something the rest of the world thrives over their work employment but it’s also something the U.S. does not have all the privileges. For most people in the U.S., employment insurance to them seems to be given to those who already have jobs and don’t really the benefit to aid them. But as soon as they see someone with no job, no benefits, and no privilege simply asking out for people to benefit to the sick and unemployment, they’re automatically deemed as “greedy” or “lazy” for their poor life style. Most people feel like not everyone should be given the benefits that they were born into simply by money, knowing not every American was born in middle-higher class families. So why should we give them benefits? Simply,