Health Reform Literature Review

Health Reform

Literature Review

According to Ehlke (2009), Buerhaus, Ulrich, Donelan, and DesRoches (2008), the health insurance and health care system in America have become an overly politicized arena. Some authors like Healy (2010) perceive that the current health care system is a political positioning that is highly subjective and devised to benefit a select few while the majority will suffer under the heavy burden of higher premiums. It is affirmative that the health care system needed urgent amendments (Guevara & Mendias, 2002). Nonetheless, improving health care needed to be an all-round, all-inclusive undertaking that takes into account all parties involved without oppressing a given party (McLaughlin, 2005).

Different institutions have reacted to the Affordable Care Act, which has also been brandished Obama Care (Ellerbe and Regen, 2012; Healy, 2010; McLaughlin, 2005; Gibson & Singh, 2011). In the nursing profession, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has aroused mixed reactions and issues that tend to conflict with nursing profession (Ellerbe & Regen, 2012). Ellerbe and Regen connote that while ACA has a set of important implications, the nursing profession is increasingly a competitive environment that “emphasizes on the importance of positive patient outcome” (p. 210).

The challenge comes from consumers (patients) that have learnt the quality of service expected from health care providers (Arah, Klazinga, Delnoij, Ten Asbroek, & Custers, 2003; Ellerbe & Regen, 2012). This tends to increase the pressure on the nursing profession especially with an increase in health care insurance covers (Arah et al., 2003; Ellerbe & Regen, 2012). The basic concept of the ACA was to ensure that middle and low-income earners will afford healt...

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...arch, 35(3), 663-686.

McLaughlin, C. (2005). Health care reform and health services research: What once was old is new again, and again. Health Services Research, 40(3), 599-604. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6773.2005.00376.x

Pan American Health Organization (1998). Health in the Americas. Volume Two. Washington, all. Geneva: WHO.

Shaban, R., Brandenburg, E. (2012). Nursing research: methods, critical appraisal and utilization ‘2nd ed. Schneider, Z., Elliott, D., (Chief Editors) LoBiondo-Wood, G., Beanland, C., & Haber, J. (Editors) Mosby – Elsevier; 2004. ISBN: 0-7295-3665-3. Australian journal of Paramedicine, 3(3), 1-3. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/jephc/vol3/iss3/9

Tshannen, D., Keenan, G., Aebersold, M., Kocan, M. J., Lundy, F. & Averhart, V. (2011). Implications of nurse-physician relations: Report of a successful intervention. Nursing Economic$, 29(3), 127-135.