Health insurance was developed to provide guaranteed coverage for sickness, injury and preventable health measures. Currently, the United States is facing a major challenge in controlling the cost of health care and providing coverage for everyone. This is why it is so important for the government to develop a new health care insurance plan. The purpose of this paper is to explore the history of health care, the major improvements made to coverage through the years. Discussing the healthcare reform and the plans to improve the quality, and cost of health care for everyone in the United States. Birth of Health Insurance Health insurance started in the early twentieth century when the working class of America faced the problem of sickness and injury resulting in missing work and lost wages. The first health insurance was disability insurance. It was developed during the civil war as a paid benefit to railroad and steamboat workers. Its only focus was to pay benefits to the insured when a railroad or steamboat injury occurred. Disability insurance was not designed, nor had the funding to cover hospital, or other medical expenses. The railroad and steamboat workers were unable to pay for the other medical expenses that accrued during sickness and injury. This dilemma caused the development of the first health insurance plan, called Blue Cross. “Blue Cross began when a businessman helped a group of teachers pre-pay for medical care. The teachers made small monthly payments to a hospital in exchange for medical services as needed” (Kennedy, English “Health Care” 1). This idea of lending money to help the people pre- pay for health care caught on quickly. Many companies struggling to survive during this time period adopted this idea o... ... middle of paper ... ... 1993 During Bill Clinton’s presidency the health insurance issues came up again. He shared plans of a national health insurance, which Congress shot down, feeling that it would still be too restrictive and cost too much. Multiple other plans were discussed during this time, and like the national health care plan they were too voted against. Works Cited Kennedy, Particia, and Marlanda English. “ Health Insurace: An overview. “Points of View:Health Insurance (2009): 1. Points of View Reference Center.EBSCO. Web. 3 April. 2010. Nancy De Lew The First 30 Years of Medicare and Medicaid JAMA, Jul 1995; 274:262-276. Changing Times “Could HMO give you better,cheaper healthcare?” Unknow author vol 34. No 6 article dated june 1980 pg 29 viewed on 4/06/2010 Funding Alternatives for Fire and Emergancy Services bu US Fire Administration ch 8 section 2 2000.
In the 1800’s, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium, among others, began to establish “socialized insurance policies” and medical care, which are still in effect today, while at the same time, the United States began to furthe...
Many pivotal events over the last century have brought our healthcare system to where it is today. Some were indirect, such as World War II (and how it led to direct events such as medical advances that shifted focus from critical care and managing contagion to preventive medicine and health insurance as an employee benefit) and the internet (which has provided a wealth of tools and resources that were once only available to healthcare providers and has served to foster technological advancements such as Electronic Health Records and telemedicine). Others were targeted interventions, such as the Hill-Burton Act, which was enacted in 1946 and provided infrastructure dollars to healthcare facilities that agreed to provide a significant volume of free or reduced cost services to those with limited ability to pay (HRSA, 2014). Perhaps the most influential targeted event was the passage of Medicare and Medicaid programs, which was the point at which the government became the administrator for insurance programs for the poor, creating a system that would continuously grow and impact service delivery through regulatory control.
It is enthralling to note that in spite of the advances in healthcare systems, such as our hospital’s ability to provide patients with lower cost, managed One being the Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO), which was first proposed in the 1960s by Dr. Paul Elwood in the "Health Maintenance Strategy”. The HMO concept was created to decrease increasing health care costs and was set in law as the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, after promotion from the Nixon Administration. HMO would, in exchange for a fee, allow members access to employed physicians and facilities. In return, the HMO received market access and could earn federal development funds.
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.
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.
Davidson, Stephen M. Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business, 2010. Print.
Out of all the industrialized countries in the world, the United States is the only one that doesn’t have a universal health care plan (Yamin 1157). The current health care system in the United States relies on employer-sponsored insurance programs or purchase of individual insurance plans. Employer-sponsored coverage has dropped from roughly 80 percent in 1982 to a little over 60 percent in 2006 (Kinney 809). The government does provide...
Health Maintenance Organizations, or HMO’s, are a very important part of the American health care system. Also referred to as managed care programs, HMO's are combinations of doctors and insurance companies that are formed into one organization. This organization provides treatment to its members at fixed costs and decides on what treatment, if any, will be given based on the patient's or doctor's current health plan. Sometimes, no treatment is given at all. HMO's main concerns are to control costs and supposedly provide the best possible treatment to their patients. But it seems to the naked eye that instead their main goal is to get more people enrolled so that they can maintain or raise current premiums paid by consumers using their service. For HMO's, profit comes first- not patients' lives.
The American Medical Student Association (2004) stated that ?Between 1945 and 1970, America?s economy was strong and booming?, they owned about 60% of the world profit.? (¶13). During this time employers were able to cover their employees and the employers were also able to ?write off the health insurance as tax-deductibles for the company.?(AMSA, 2004, ¶ 11 ). As time progressed our economy began to unravel.
...gery Medical Group. The history of health insurance in the united states. (2007). Retrieved from: http://www.neurosurgical.com/medical_ history_and_ethics/history/history_of_health_insurance.htm
The need for universal health care within the United States has been evident, and needed to be addressed. The old healthcare system was plagued with issues, including expensive premiums that were on the rise, along with an inflated average infant mortality rate and limited average life expectancy, which ultimately led to many people being left uninsured (“Affordable” 2). In the 2012 presidential election, one key issue was how to reform America’s broken health care system, and to instate a successful universal healthcare system that has resolved the previous issues. Being one of the last influential and competitive countries in the world without universal healthcare, the pressure was on for the United States to develop their own system. Since Barack Obama became president, Obamacare, instead of the proposed Romneycare, was born.
“Health Care that works for Americans.” The White House. The White House. 20 Oct. 1994. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. .
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...
The US health system has both considerable strengths and notable weaknesses. With a large and well-trained health workforce, access to a wide range of high-quality medical specialists as well as secondary and tertiary institutions, patient outcomes are among the best in the world. But the US also suffers from incomplete coverage of its population, and health expenditure levels per person far exceed all other countries. Poor measures on many objective and subjective indicators of quality and outcomes plague the US health care system. In addition, an unequal distribution of resources across the country and among different population groups results in poor access to care for many citizens. Efforts to provide comprehensive, national health insurance in the United States go back to the Great Depression, and nearly every president since Harry S. Truman has proposed some form of national health insurance.
According to Roy, 2013 the issues of providing the affordable care act will unite both the supporters and offenders of the public policy, but in this current situation where the input costs are rising, it will become impossible for government in managing the public policy related to affordable health care. In order to provide affordable health care, majority of the US government has tried out different policies time to time, but unable to get success in realizing the actual policy goals. By providing the affordable health care to majority of the people who requires more amount as controlling the input cost is not possible (AAMC, 2013). Lack of doctors is one of the primary issue in providing high quality health care to the citizens especially those who are financially poor. The Supreme Court of the country passed an Act related to Health insurance as all should have Health Insurance to all the country people by the year 2014, but the at the same time government is concerned about constitutionality of these act (NYTimes, 2013).