Essential Aspects Of The American Healthcare System

The delivery of the U.S. healthcare system has changed drastically over the years from the inception of organized healthcare to today’s underdeveloped system. Prior to the 1920’s,

Cherry, B., & Jacob, S.(1997). Chapter 7 Paying for Health Care in America: Rising Costs and

A series of events has recently occurred to cause the passage of PPACA. Economics are explicitly linked to health care. In the United States, health care coverage is provided primarily through an employer-based system. This system began in the depression era when pay was federally frozen. Companies, in an attempt to lure scarce workers, used benefits packages including health care as bait. Described as a “uniquely American” “private social security” health care system, the employer-sponsored system is the “cornerstone” of United States health care system (Blumenthal, 2006). This system has left many un- or under-insured. Blumenthal states (2006), “The United States’ dependence on employer-sponsored insurance means that the protection of its citizens against the costs of illness depends directly on the ability of private businesses to manage and absorb health care expenses that have defied all efforts to contain them.” Recently, economic downturn and the need to reduce expenses to better compete on the global market has caused many companies to both reduce their insurance benefits package and their work force causing many to lose their health care coverage. The employer-based system merged with the economic downturn, unaffordable health care costs for businesses, and

In order to make insurance affordable to all there were extensive private health insurance regulatory reforms, particularly in the small group and non-group markets, there were tax credits offered to the smallest lowest-wage employers for the purchase of health insurance, there were reductions in cost-sharing associated with recommended preventive care. For example if you signed up with a fitness center you can get a 50% discount on your insurance. The market exchange was established for the purchase of private coverage plus subsidies for the individual purchase of coverage and for the cost-sharing of the modest income. “The affordable care act also expanded the eligibility for the Medicaid program to all non-elderly with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($23,000 to $32,000 for a family of four in 2012) starting in 2014, which helped phase out the Medicare prescription drug benefit coverage gap, a.k.a. the “doughnut hole”.” To make sure that everyone is complying with the rule of everyone needs to have healthcare coverage there was a penalty set up for those that failed to comply. The penalty was if you did not have insurance by the set date you will receive a tax penalty that you will have to pay when filling your taxes. There are financial requirements that large- and medium sized

The Obama care Affordable Care Act has advantages, but the disadvantages in the favor of both the insurers and the insured play a major part in if the Affordable Care Act is for the best interest of everyone. In America, the average citizen has plenty to gain than to lose with the new insurance plans. The people on the higher spectrum ;however, will notice more negative effects of the Affordable Care Act as well as the larger businesses that will notice the financial downfall of the new insurance policy. In order to get the money to help insure most of the recipients of the health insurance plans there are new taxes, mostly on high-earners. According to Longman, Phillip, and Paul S. Hewitt, the authors of “After Obama care,” they state, “Workers with employer provided health insurance have to wound of paying this tax largely in the form of foregone wages, pensions, and other benefits.”(Longman & Hewitt 39). Many people that have worked on their jobs are satisfied with the insurance they had and with the new law they are paying more out of pocket in the end than they have before.

For many years, the organizations had purchased life insurance for their employees, the key reason is that through some key personnel from the insurance company to maintain their own financial loss on their lives when events occur (Martin, 2010). On the other hand, the insurance company by emphasizing their tax advantages, to encourage corporations to purchase the corporate-owned life insurance. The goal of corporate-owned life insurance is corporations need to take large loans in order to pay for the insurance fee and make the maximize profits of tax. At the same time, the corporations can get a large amount of income tax from their interest payment. However, in 1986, the insurance organizations established new form which named Tax Reform

The affordable care act was passed into law by congress and the president in 2010. This plan was established to help all individuals obtain health insurance, regardless of having a pre-existing condition through the government marketplace as an affordable amount, or if you did not meet the set standards, was offered a state based health care coverage (HHS, 2015). Those individuals who did not have qualified medical coverage for the majority of the tax year, they would be penalized and have to pay a certain amount or a percentage based off of their income. Also under the ACA employers are now responsible, depending on how many employees are employed with their company, to offer their full time employees health care coverage, or also face a

In the beginning of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the “healthcare system” was left in the hands of the states, which the states handed off to private and voluntary programs to deal with. In the presidential term of Teddy Roosevelt, 1901-1909, he felt that “no country could be strong whose people were sick and poor.” (Palmer 1999) He did however back health insurance as a whole. Roosevelt was not the one fighting for the health care though, there were outside forces that impacted health care. The American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) led the campaign for health insurance. They drafted their first bill by 1915. This bill wanted to limit the coverage toward the working class and anyone who earned less than $1,200 a year including dependents. The American Medical Association (AMA) backed this bill because they felt the same way about coverage. The AMA did not speak for all doctors and those who opposed this backing spoke up. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) opposed the bill because they felt that it would weaken the unions and they wanted to maintain their strength. The private insurance

The World War 2 era of wage freezes eventually allowed tax-free fringe benefits such as health insurance. Thus, companies were encouraged through tax benefits to provide their employees with health insurance, resulting in many workers today receiving health insurance from their employers. However, economists believe this policy benefits the rich and drives up healthcare costs. By examining the healthcare system and its costs, economists observed that healthcare took up a larger chunk of the US economy than that of other developed nations. Consequently, the implementation of the Cadillac tax on overly generous health plans was meant to keep healthcare costs under control by discouraging nonessential care and encourage preventative care.

The American Association of Labor Legislation founded in 1906 led introduced the idea of Universal Health Care. Their goal was not to abolish capitalism but rather to reform it. (www.pnhp.org). Decades later after numerous attempts President Obama successfully passed the law to create The Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010. This act is defined as “a federal healthcare law and is the largest change to American healthcare since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s.(Healthline.com)

I am saddened that most Americans do not realize that employers and the government are not actually paying for most of their healthcare and healthcare benefits. I am even more bothered that politicians’ rhetoric about shared responsibility reinforces people’s misunderstandings instead of opening their eyes to how healthcare payment really works. I agree with the authors in that “The notion that someone else is paying for the insurance further reduces the incentive for cost control” (Emmanuel & Fuchs, 2008). We could work harder to help people understand that healthcare cost control is heavily reliant on the

While some argue that a switch to universal healthcare will cost up to $1.5trillion,4 there are other factors at play that influence the economy. Most Americans have health insurance through their employer which causes a huge financial strain on that employer, which is in turn reflected in product and service prices. If the price of goods and services goes up, that could end up hurting the United States’ global competitiveness. Citizens are unwilling to leave their current employer and possibly start their own business for fear of not being able to afford health insurance on their own.5 Some of those would-be entrepreneurs could create the next big product that becomes a critical part of the national economy. On average, the typical family of four in America pays over $20,000 annually on health insurance,7 money that could be pushed back into the economy. This is all in addition to the societal costs caused by the lack of universal health care such as fewer years in the workforce, caused by poor health, and higher cost to public programs like Medicare and the criminal justice system.5 If someone is uninsured until they reach the appropriate age to enroll in Medicare, they could have pre-existing, otherwise preventable conditions that will end up costing more money than it would have to treat them in the first place. In 2005, economist Dr. Kenneth Thorpe published a report in which he calculated the overall

In 1943, employer-based health care became tax-free by the Internal Revenue Service. By 1960s, around 70 percent of the public was covered by private or voluntary health insurance plan. In 2010, The U.S. Congress marked the greatest change in our health policy since the 1960s. This is when Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This law was intended to address the fundamental problems of the health care system.

Many employees must designate a health plan through their employer. These days, as HMOs (health maintenance organizations) and managed care plans continue to proliferate, that means a choice between bad and worse. As employees line up in the lunch-room for a process called open enrollment, they may be surprised to learn that managed care rates have gone up — again. The mirage that managed care is cheaper care is finally fading. And, for the first time in years, employees may also have the promise of free choice in medicine in the form of a new method of financing health care. Consumers are already aware of horror stories involving HMOs, but cheap rates persuaded many that managed care is less expensive. Recent

Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century the United States has always had a realization that there was a problem with obtaining affordable health insurance. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare, was signed into law in March 2010. This law enables people who were unable to afford healthcare the ability to obtain a healthcare plan at an affordable rate. In 2009 a survey was taken as to the amount of people in the United States that carried health insurance. In table one below you can see over 50 million people in the United States did not have any type of insurance, which is close to 17 percent of the population (see table 1 below). “According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “32%