Health And Its Proprietary Technology Ecosystem Essay

Health insurance comes as second nature to many of us. We grab that blue and white card and put it in our wallet and forget about it until we are sick or injured. When this happens, there it is, cushioning our fall like the extra padding it provided to cushion our wallets. This is not the case with everyone, however. Many Americans have no cushion to fall back on, no blue and white card to show the emergency room when they have an unexpected health concern. No HMO with a convenient co-pay amount when their son or daughter develops an ear infection.

More and more people with medical insurance are relying on the health care system as new technologies and treatments become available. This leads to a grater number of claims for payment by insurance companies, the costs of which are passed back to health care consumers. The baby-boom generation is entering its peak health-care using period. Over eighty million Americans will turn 50 in the next 10 years. The cost of providing heath care for these individuals will be staggering

By the 1960s, the formation of unions help to standardized employer health benefits and the access to insurance was prevalent for workers. This system seemed to be well established as the employers, private health insurance carries, physicians and hospitals would recycle health cost amongst each other. However, there were many underlying problems with this tightly organized system. Self employed individuals, small companies, the poor, and the unemployed had no organized access to health insurance. Also, at this time the majority of elderly retirees lost their health insurance in old age when they needed it most. These underserved populations began to seek care in emergency facilities driving the cost of urgent care back on the hospital and

Rising health insurance premiums have made healthcare unaffordable in the United States. Health insurance premiums in this country have undergone a steady rise over the past few years while incomes have remained the same. More than 50% of individuals with low incomes holding private insurance in the United States are unable to afford their healthcare costs (Collins, Gunja, Doty & Buetel, 2015). In addition, costs related to healthcare are equally unaffordable to 25% of working-age individuals who hold private health insurance policies (Collins et al., 2015). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust (Kaiser/HRET) survey on employer health benefits, employer-sponsored health insurance plans have also had moderate rises in premiums in 2013 for both individuals and family coverage (Claxton et al., 2013). While

In 1954, Congress passed legislation allowing employers to provide health insurance benefits to employees on a tax-free basis (Sih and Singh 99). This legal provision marked the beginning of the rapidly expanding health care costs still apparent today due to the major incentives provided by the government to obtain employer-based health coverage. The overwhelming popularity of employer-based health insurance has led to a serious market inefficiency resulting from the system of third-party payment. As individuals rely on their insurance companies to pay for their medical expenses, this provides

Employers are continuing to face rising health benefit costs and are constantly looking for alternatives to control these escalating costs. Health benefit premiums continue to increase at a double digit pace for employers and employees (Poor, Ross & Tollen, 2004). This escalation is putting environmental pressures on all impacted stakeholders. Companies and insurance providers are squeezing this industry to get a handle on cost while still providing an appropriate level of care. This cycle puts the patient front and center as the ultimate stakeholder who incurs changes in health benefits. This mandate of cost control, efficient operations and market share has facilitated a constant analysis of the dynamic health

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

Health insurance began in the 1930’s when the Great Depression hit the United States. After the great depression it became very noticeable that health coverage was needed to protect the people and get them the health care treatment they needed. Too many people were dying of sickness and not able to afford the treatment. It wasn’t until the government tried to create some type of insurance to help with these costs. Medicare was created in 1965 for the elderly citizens. At that time there was also commercial and private insurance for Americans. “For years, clinicians have advocated for health insurance coverage for all Americans. Now, through the Affordable Care Act, the nation is one step closer to this goal. October 1, 2013, marks the

For too long, the American public was held hostage by predatory insurance companies. These companies used their power and privilege to keep their companies afloat while ensuring that much needed medical care was out of reach for a majority of the American public. Citizens were subjected to rules, regulations and policies that proved to be detrimental to their needs. Individuals with pre-existing medical conditions were denied care or were made to pay very expensive premiums. Policies were cancelled if additional medical conditions were identified and policies offering the bare minimum of coverage, were expensive preventing individuals from being able to afford health insurance. Americans over the age of 50 found it impossible to obtain quality insurance without paying way too much in premiums. Policies were denied for reasons that benefitted the insured. The result was that many Americans were uninsured, underinsured and when medical situations occurred, citizens were not able to obtain the proper treatment and care. This also placed a strain on the economy because individuals would go to the emergency rooms for treatment and not pay their bills resulting in the increase in premiums. The cycle continued, with bills not paid and premiums increased. This caused the

Health insurance in the United States is not a single nationwide system and is much more diverse in terms of production methods (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012). Health insurance is either purchased privately or provided to some public groups from the government, mainly Medicare and Medicaid (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012). Medicare is a nationally run program for aged and disabled individuals (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012). Medicaid provides coverage economically disadvantaged groups (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012). The Affordable Care Act of 2012, established a shared responsibility between the government, employers and individuals ensuring all Americans have access to affordable health insurance (The Commonwealth Fund, 2016). For private

In the current U.S. system the free market prevails and companies, in this case, major insurance providers “compete” for business. This competitive business approach should in theory drive costs down. For some reason, however, an argument can be made that it has produced the opposite result in profiteering. The nation’s largest insurer, UnitedHealth, boasted over a 10 percent revenue increase in 2013 according to Forbes (2013). Health insurance affordability contributes to the disparity in access to health care, as evidenced by the fact that there are millions that are still uncovered. A greater majority of certain minorities lack both health insurance and the financial resource to seek out either health care or insurance. While insurance companies reap huge profits the percent of private sector companies offering health insurance has dropped to less than 50 percent (Kaiser, 2013). There is decidedly a lack of coordination of care for this at risk population as well, since treatment is rendered sporadically and with continuously changing providers. The last major challenge is that of improving the quality of health care. According to a 2010 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (OIG), an estimated 13.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events during their hospital stay and an additional 13.5 percent experienced a temporary

Astronomical costs together with increased numbers of uninsured citizens in the United States creates an environment where health care premiums continue to grow at an astronomical rate with many businesses simply choosing to not offer a health plan—or if they do—they pass on more of the cost to employees. Employees facing higher health care premiums often choose to go without health coverage. Being uninsured does not mean going without health care; there are many clinics and services that are free to indigent individuals. However, any costs not covered by insurance are absorbed by the rest of the population, which translates to higher premiums for the middle class. (Messerli, 2014)

As discussed in lecture (Paterniti, 2009) and in Oberlander’s analysis of the U.S. health care system, “any reform that threatens to alter the medical care arrangements of the insured is likely to provoke public opposition” (2003). Most likely, the insured are well off financially and/or politically powerful. These people, who are for the most part content with their current health insurance, would oppose

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%

The higher cost of affordable Health care is also eroding the ease with which to afford other insurance that covers about 30 percent of Medicare enrollees ‘expenses. In 2005, about 89 percent of beneficiaries obtained such additional coverage, including through former employers (33 percent), medical policies (25 percent), Medicare advantage plans (13 percent), Medicaid (16 percent), or other programs (1 percent) (MedPAC). These supplemental insurance programs were all very helpful at the onset, but with the passage of time and as health care costs continued to rise, employers are finding it difficult to support these programs and as a consequence, a greater number of these employers are either reducing the benefit or eliminating these benefits especially those that affects their retirees thereby increasing the cost of these supplemental insurances.