With being one of the sickest and poorest states in the United States, in what ways can the state of Mississippi increase the overall compliance of all residents having health care coverage as well as reducing the amount of non-emergent visits to the Emergency Room by adopting the Affordable Care Act (in its entirety)? In what ways can guidance provided by other countries help the state in closing the gap in availability, affordability, and coverage?
Background:
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Affordable Care Act and/or Obamacare) was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23rd, 2010. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted to increase the affordability of health insurance by controlling the
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For many years, Mississippi has topped the list of states with the highest rates of adult and childhood obesity, diabetes, hypertension, low birth weight babies and infant mortality. As of January 2014, Mississippi was also ranked #1 with 24.1% of its population falling below the Federal Poverty Level. The highest indicator of 2014 was 33.7% of children falling below poverty. Figure 19
For close to 50 years, the Mississippi Medicaid program has provided health coverage for its low-income residents. “While Medicaid originally only insured Americans receiving cash welfare assistance, Congress expanded it over the years to help insure those left behind by the private insurance system”.7 Medicaid in the state of Mississippi is a health care program that help pays for medical services for its low income residents. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, Medicaid provided $3.9 billion in benefits which attributed to 20.4% of all health care spending in the state7 and insured 754,333 – 1 out 4 (25.6%) state residents.6
Medicare has given the elderly population and people with disabilities access to health care coverage. It traditionally protects recipients and their families against health related expenses that could otherwise drastically hurt their finances. In FY 2009, the state of Mississippi spent over $5.2 billion in benefits for its recipients, which accounted for 26.9% percent of the overall health care spending for the entire state.
Health care has been a controversial topic of discussion for all Americans since it was put in effect many years ago. Currently the biggest debate of Healthcare up to date is Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a Health care Reform that is a governmental attempt to make basic health care easily obtainable. However, there are no benefits without cost in situations like this, and upon that are different viewpoints on the subject thus creating political debates discussing if it is ethically correct. The overall goal that Obamacare hopes to accomplish is that through specific changes through insurance companies, industry standards, and patient guarantees a healthier America will be produced. Obamacare has its ups and downs for both the generally agreeing democratic viewpoints and the opposing republican side. Both viewpoints have their own beliefs about how Health care works and Obamacare is somewhat in between on this. Most arguments on Obamacare deal with Medicaid being constitutional and if Obamacare truly reduces the total cost of health care for individuals and in the government.
Money plays a huge role in access, therefore it is a vital issue to discuss. Within the current system, lack of money results in lack of health care, which leaves thousands of people without any health care coverage. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of people paying for health insurance increased 30%, however income only raised 3% (Health Care Problems). Adequate income is a necessity and unfortunately that is not present. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the average annual premium across the country is $16,000. Currently, the average annual income in the United States is $51,107. Mint Money Management suggests that about 4-6% of one’s total income should be spent on insurance, including life, disability, and health insurance. However, the averages in the United States show that the average person spends about 31% of their income on health insurance, which is not financially beneficial. When this rise in health insurance is not parallel to the inflation of income, innocent people are left without a method to achieve health care. There is a program for those who can’t afford health insurance out of pocket nor have access to it, and that is called Medicaid. Issues still exist with the program. There is only so much funding, which leaves many still uninsured. Additionally, people with Medicaid have difficulty
Obama’s Health Care Reform, better known as ObamaCare was signed into law on March 23, 2010. It is officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or Affordable Care Act (ACA). This act is meant to provide affordable, good quality health care to all Americans and to cut health care spending. The ACA has been on ongoing struggle to reform the health care system. Almost 50 million Americans still lack health coverage despite the fact that ObamaCare continues to help provide an increasing amount of Americans with access to affordable, quality health insurance . ObamaCare doesn’t take place until 2014, 2013 is considered one of the most important years in history of ObamaCare.
On March 23rd, 2010 the president of the United States, Barack Obama, signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or familiarly the Obamacare (What is ObamaCare). President Obama created ACA to make health care more affordable and accessible for people in the United States. The Affordable Care Act guarantees most people will have health insurances as well as reduces the high cost of health care of individual and government. These are also two points that the ACA achieve and will continuously achieve.
These programs in state level would cater health service on basic levels to rural areas and also the urban areas. However, There must be the same rules and regulations for health care services across the state as well as the country and the access to minority groups to health care services must be fast and continuous in rate. The positives of state flexibility in health care certainly outweigh the negative in that some states have more growth than other states, therefore in these situations, the levels of health care may differ. As population and development grows in a state, the health care industry must grow, thus increasing the need for new technology. "Due to the needs of vulnerable populations and the requirements necessary to make health insurance coverage for them viable, these programs are quite different from standard private health insurance plans (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2013)." Private state insurance health care plans have the flexibility of choosing what groups they want to cover and what type coverage they will pay for. Medicaids concern for the needy is ethical and moral, illness or injury doesn't
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. While the act is directed at addressing one of the country's most pressing problems, it generated much controversy as a consequence of the ethical dilemmas that it brings on. The act provides individuals with a wider range of choices and control over their health coverage. It provides a series of benefits such as people getting lower costs on coverage, several important health benefits being covered in the Marketplace, more help in local areas, and pre-existing conditions being covered. However, it also involves a legislation claiming that most people have to have health coverage by 2014, with those who do not have it having to pay a fee.
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, putting in place comprehensive reforms that improve access to affordable health coverage for everyone and to protect consumers from abusive insurance company practices (Whitehouse.gov). President Obama states that the Affordable Care Act is the most important health care legislation enacted in the United
President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law on March 23rd of 2010, with hopes of helping make sure every American have access to quality and affordable health care. Having health care coverage is really a big deal, whether you are a parent with private insurance, a senior with Medicare or a single woman with a pre-existing condition, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can save you money and help you get better coverage.
In March 2010, one of the most controversial bills in modern history was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expanded the 1965 bill passed under President Johnson that created Medicare and Medicaid (“LBJ Presidential Library,” 2015). While the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” as it has been dubbed by the media, has many components, the focus here is the expansion of Medicaid. Obamacare sought to expand Medicaid to cover those who earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, but not enough to afford employer-provided health care. These people are said to be in the “coverage gap” (“Obamacare Medicaid expansion,” 2015). While only 32 states have adopted Obamacare, we should advance a policy encouraging the remaining states to expand existing coverage by extending the period of federal government cost-sharing an additional five years. Doing so would give states previously refusing the cost sharing a second chance to opt-in. This expansion would save money for the states from some of the rising cost of healthcare, and fulfill our moral duty to care for uninsured Americans.
The Affordable Care Act, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was put into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The focus of the Act is a health care law geared towards improving the health care system of the United States by broadening medical coverage to more Americans, as well as protecting the existing health insurance policy holders.
Many states offer help to consumers with health insurance problems. The Affordable Care Act improves these services with grants that help states start or strengthen Consumer Assistance Programs. Before the health care law, you often had to fend for yourself when trying to find affordable health insurance or resolve problems with a health plan, such as when your insurer denies a claim or refuses to pay for needed treatment. Even though some states have had programs to help consumers, those programs often have been overburdened and underfunded.
The Affordable Care Act completely changed the patient landscape of health care safety nets with its implementation in 2010. In particular, its expansion of Medicaid significantly shifted uninsured patient healthcare provider utilization, from emergency departments and free clinics, towards community health centers and federally qualified health centers. Yet major gaps in healthcare coverage persist due to states choosing not to expand Medicaid, exclusion of undocumented immigrants, and misunderstandings of the ACA. Health care safety net providers must understand their changing demographics and the needs of vulnerable uninsured patient populations. In doing so, healthcare safety net providers will be better informed in regards to necessary changes needed to thrive in the post-ACA era.
Medicaid provides a comprehensive benefit package for those who enroll. The federal government requires coverage of thirteen services, including inpatient and outpatient hospital services, nursing home and home health care, and for children under the age of twenty-one. The benefits do not end there, Medicaid offers a
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, putting in place comprehensive reforms that improve access to affordable health coverage for everyone and protect consumers from
In October 2013, the Affordable Care Act took flight and millions of Americans attempted to insert themselves into the health care system through the website Healthcare.gov. The website, however was not easy to navigate through and made it hard and complicated resulting in many Americans no longer pursuing it. Humana helps the The Affordable Care Act by providing health insurance and it is also going out of its way to make sure other people in different areas that do not know too much about it start to understand it better and decided to get insurance. In Mississippi, there is minimal education within the population concerning enrollment options which caused challenges. In Mississippi there is a lack of health insurers offering coverage in the marketplace.