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Health care policy formation
Essay on health policy health care reform
Essay on health policy health care reform
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Recommended: Health care policy formation
There is no doubt that health care is an extremely important aspect of our daily lives since it is a safety net if you were to ever have any health complications which could potentially be more monetarily impactful and ultimately prevent you from getting treatment due to a lack of upfront cash. The real question is should it be the responsibility of the U.S. Government to have national health care for it its citizens? I personally find it hard to back the national health care not because of the idea of giving all citizens health care but for the technicalities involved. • Defining Universal Health Insurance o From countries that have single payer health care systems or health care systems that are heavily controlled by the government there …show more content…
This is the case for both the GDP and per capita(Jacqueline Brux). You may be asking how does this make sense we pay more for what seems to be a lower quality? In reality the United States is actually providing a much higher quality as a base level for health care expenditures in comparison to other countries who have horrible base care. Also in the long run countries with national health care end up paying more in the long term than most because the costs of the services are rising based on demand, budgeting deficits, and constant tax increases. Imagine a tax increase for health care in the United States we throw hissy fits over tax increases for education health care would be pushing the line to …show more content…
If you were to remove the privatization of the health care industry you would cause there to be even steeper prices to pay since most medical practitioners want to appeal to people by being the lowest prices and highest quality so that people feel inclined to take their business to them rather than to a competitor . This competitive market is actually beneficial in the sense that it allows people to find the price range that suits the most. o To compliment that you also push not only the medical staffs but the entire industry to find new cures or alternatives that all for the market to improve in quality or innovate the industry by making it more efficient or service. I genuinely believe every person should have the right to good health care, but I think it would be more detrimental at this point to fully implement a system in which only the government is regulating the market. Health care should be given to those who cannot afford it but should not affect those who already have a health care framework in place which is what policies like Obamacare have tried to do by somewhat punishing people for keeping their health care plans by making the market have to be more competitive and reducing the quality that you are getting for what you have to
While most countries around the world have some form of universal national health care system, the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, does not. There are much more benefits to the U.S. adopting a dorm of national health care system than to keep its current system, which has proved to be unnecessarily expensive, complicated, and overall inefficient.
The U.S. Constitution is a good foundation for implementing health care for people all over the world and article 1 section 8 clause 1 explains the power of government when it comes to health care. According to the Enduring Democracy book, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States..." (Dautrich, C-5). In other words, the government has the power to allow everyone the right to health care since our taxes are already being collect for the common defense and general welfare. General welfare refers to health care in which the government may provide.
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...
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 healthcare reform debate has been politicized in the United States for many years where there have been deliberate efforts by various stakeholders to ensure that they push for the reforms that are in line with the cost-benefit aspects that they have already envisioned. In this paper, I will attempt to prove that the reforms that have been witnessed in the healthcare in the recent years have not been effective and helpful to the society as a whole. When President Obama came into office, he promised to oversee great reforms in the healthcare which is his government he face much priority in the social policy aspects. The congress managed to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
The cost of running the health care is might be very expensive. Never the less, guaranteeing citizens of basic and improved health care is more than unbearable to many countries, not to mention the expensive medical technologies that some countries cannot afford. I remember the time when i’m sick in Thailand, the cost was about 1500, my dad pull out his 1000 baht (Thai money) handing to cashier at the hospital back in Thailand saying this is all he have. The cashier looked at him sadly, she then only took 500 instead of 1000. She say come back and pay whenever you got the money but guess what? We moved here to United State before paying off our debt but my dad go back and pay twice he own when he visited Thailand last year. I believe that the government should provide everyone with health care. Though I think President Obama is making a solid effort given the nature of the American people, I do not think his healthcare plan goes far enough. He has the right idea in mandating that all people have health insurance, however, I think removing the public option was a bad idea. The public option should have been kept so that people can afford to buy health insurance. But again, it must be noted that this is not a perfect solution. I think the only real solution that is likely to make a big difference to those who need it would be a universal health care plan provided by the government. I had always had trouble with this idea because though I believed that everyone should have health care, I didn’t know if I could deem it a right. I had always felt that access to health care was a very important thing, especially because I come from a place where proper health care is not only difficult to find, but also impossible to pay for if found. However, health care had seemed less of a basic need than happiness or
The Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, is a new health policy created by the American federal government. Its purpose is to make healthcare more affordable and friendly for the people. Unfortunately in some way that does not prove to be the case. It is becoming apparent that Obama may have made some misleading statements to help get the ACA put into action. The ACA is sprinkled with many flaws that call for a reform such as people’s current plans being terminated, high costs, and at minimum some people’s hours being cut by their employers.
However, according to Jenna Flannigan, write at Healthline.com, America’s current for-profit system allows for competition between medical and pharmaceutical companies which drives prices up astronomically. “In countries where health insurance is government-run or nonprofit-run, there is no profit factor to drive up prices…For example, a typical bypass surgery in the Netherlands costs about $15,000 while in the United States it costs about $75,000” (Flannigan). This figure illustrates how the US’s needless competition between private, for-profit organizations make medical care unnecessarily unattainable to those who aren’t very affluent or do not have comprehensive medical care. These bloated prices do not even contribute to better care a majority of the time, as pointed out by political consultant Karin J. Robinson. “Here in Britain, for instance, we spend about 8% of the country's annual GDP on health care, compared to 15% in the US, and yet the overall health of the population is similar, with perhaps even a slight advantage for the UK” (Robinson). America’s current system is far more expensive, but for what reason? A healthcare system should be driven a will to help those in need, not for the personal gain of companies that are rife with greed. America needs to follow the path of other first-world nations and take a different approach to
The health care system in the United States is one of the most complex forms of healthcare system. What makes the system complex is that there are multiple factors involved. For example, there are multiple players and payers involved in the system. This includes physicians, administrator of health services institutions, insurance companies, large employers and lastly the Government Shi & Singh, 2012). Each of these players and payers are involved to protect their own economic interest. Hospitals for instances, wants to maximize reimbursement from both private and public insurers. Insurance companies and managed care organizations are concerned with how they can maintain their share of the health care insurance market, while physicians seek to maximize their income and have minimal interference with the way they practice medicine (Shi & Singh, 2012). It is obvious that there is no centrality of the health care system. In other words, there is no one department or in particular government body that is unilaterally in charge of the administration of the health care system as it is in the other developed nations where they have a single payer system, which is the government. Instead, the U. S. has health system that is financed by private sectors. According to Shi and Singh,(2012), 54% of total health care expenditures is privately financed through employers , while the remaining 46% is financed by the government. Lack of centrality in monitoring the total expenditures through global budgets or control over the availability and utilization of services coupled with most hospitals and clinics now been privately owned may potential...
Health care expenditures is an increasing proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries as its share in GDP increased by an average of nearly 2 percent annually in last 40 years. Health care expenditures in the US increased 6.2 on average annually between 1991 and 2011. Health care spending consisted 17.9 percent of GDP in the US in 2011.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and the well-being of oneself and one family, including…medical care” (Should All Americans Have the Right to Health Care). It’s the government’s duty to protect the life of all of its citizens; Universal health care is a step that needs to be taken to protect these lives. Some people argue that providing access to health care will be ineffective and drive up the cost. The government should provide access to universal health care because it protects health, it will lower the cost, and it eliminates discrimination from the health care system.
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.
The demand for medical care is derived from our demand for good health. Michael Grossman was the first to do econometric research on this topic. “Grossman’s work established two approaches for consideration. In the first, medical care is viewed as an input in the production function for health, and in the second, as an output produced by medical care providers (Henderson, p.142).” There are two main factors that determine the demand for medical care. The first is the patient factor. This includes a patient’s health status, demographic characteristics and economic status. The second is the physician factor. This is an interesting topic because it introduces the principal (patient)-agent (physician) problem. We are faced with the problem of diminishing marginal returns for health. At a certain point, we can only produce so much health. The question we need to ask ourselves is what is the optimal budget for medical care? This is a question that can not be easily answered due to our changing demand for medical care. If we get sick we demand more medical attention. Or, if we choose to live more dangerously this will also increase the demand. Therefore, who should pay for these increased costs for medical insurance? “Medical care spending is not the only thing that improves health. Other factors affecting health status, such as life-style, environmental pollution, and technological developments, will shift the total product curve (TV).” Figure 4.1, on the next page graphically shows that health status obeys the Law of diminishing productivity. The graph below the total product curve is the marginal product curve. The derivative of the total product curve is the marginal product curve. This curve represents the marginal change in health status. You can see this curve is negatively sloped and can be negative. The maximum point on the total product curve is the total amount of health that we can get out of life. You may know from calculus that the slope of a line at a maximum or minimum is zero. If you look down on the corresponding point on the marginal product curve it lies on the x-axis. All medical treatment after this point is negative. What does this mean? Yes, medical treatment can be harmful to your health if too much is applied. A good example of this is an X-ray. The radiation from multiple X-rays is extremely dangerous. This negat...
...ue to numerous medical errors. With the amount of medical errors that currently do occur which is a current health care issue it cost the health care billions of dollar each year to fix the mistakes that were made.
The cost of US health care has been steadily increasing for many years causing many Americans to face difficult choices between health care and other priorities in their lives. Health economists are bringing to light the tradeoffs which must be considered in every healthcare decision (Getzen, 2013, p. 427). Therefore, efforts must be made to incite change which constrains the cost of health care without creating adverse health consequences. As the medical field becomes more business oriented, there will be more of a shift in focus toward the costs and benefits, which will make medicine more like the rest of the economy (Getzen, 2013, p. 439).