Health Care History

“When we debate health care policy, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills so high? (Sultz & Young 336)”. It’s no surprise for many Americas today to realize that the cost of healthcare and the cost of having insurance is on the rise. Many people wonder why something stressed as important for every individual to have access to, is so expensive and inaccessible for many. So, why is that something that should be accessible for anyone, is lacking this quality? Many people today lack health insurance coverage, because of the high cost for private insurance or because of the loss of employer-based health coverage. Many Americans during the last decade, especially during the years of economic recession and contraction no longer have access to job-based health care insurance coverage (Sultz & Young 290). As a reaction to the many uninsured individuals and to attempt to control short and long term costs, the government had implemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

In today’s society, there is still a great struggle with health care disparities and many lives are affected by the lack of this fundamental program in our society. There are millions of people who die each year because they are unable to afford quality healthcare. The debate still continues about healthcare inequalities, what causes this disparity and who are affected by it. Health care is more of a necessity rather than a luxury and even though skeptics may argue to the latter, it only underlines the importance of the need for the wellbeing and care of individuals. There are several factors that could contribute to the lack of health care in the United States which ranges from but not limited to race, gender, socio- economic status, and lack of insurance coverage. The truth is there is a great disproportion between who can really afford quality healthcare as appose to individuals who have it. One would imagine that an employed individual would easily afford quality healthcare but we could be no further from the truth, since one’s economic status is an essential determinant to its affordability.

In the United States, the federal government left health insurance matters to the States up until the early 20th century. The States, in turn, left health insurance up to private and voluntary programs. However, the Progressive Era would bring with it calls for social insurance to improve conditions for the working class. Although it would take several more decades, those calls would eventually lead to landmark

Throughout the last half of the 20th century, employers have acted on their own to regulate health costs by requiring employees to join health maintenance organizations (HMOs). More than 100 million Americans are under managed care. However, many patients and doctors complain that HMOs impose too many regulations and sacrifice healthcare quality. HMOs are undergoing a high level of scrutiny due to criticisms that the network is controlling and jeopardizing the healthcare system of the nation.

Unlike insurers, HMOs provide care directly to patients; HMOs were viewed as low-cost alternatives to hospitals and private doctors. In 1997 approximately 651 HMOs provided care to 66.8 million people.

The HMO Act of 1973 and HIPPA influenced the growth of managed care. The Health

Over many years, the ideas of healthcare have been heavily debated in the United States. From early years dating back to the nineteenth century, people have been involved in some form of health insurance. They would have this “insurance” in case of some form of accident, so that they would not have many losses of income. According to Sultz and Young, “As early as the 19th century, some Americans carried insurance against sickness through an employer, fraternal order, guild, trade union, or commercial insurance company (2014)”. Healthcare has greatly changed since its first trial and error days. There have been new policies and pieces of legislation that have been passed in efforts to try and have all Americans covered with some form of health insurance. However, the newest form of healthcare out on the market is the idea of Concierge medicine.

When a global superpower believes that a basic human right should be correlated with the amount of money a person makes, there is something very wrong. The United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has one of the lowest ranked healthcare systems among its peer countries as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality (Weitz, 186). The history of health care in this country is convoluted, just as the policies that enforce it today are. It is crucial to understand both the history of what the United States has failed to provide to its citizens as well as what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) does and does not achieve for the citizens it claims to protect. In this essay, I will review the positives and the negatives of the past U.S. health care measures, the U.S. health care system as compared to the best health care system in the world, and the logistics of the ACA to dig at the fundamental issues that contribute to the one of the greatest stains on the American flag since slavery.

Though the cost of the healthcare system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, there is a large percentage of Americans that have no health insurance. Healthcare is the country’s largest economic division, larger than the national defense. Although, millions of people cannot afford to take care of their health needs. Insurance premiums have almost doubled in the last eight years, making health insurance for millions out of their grasp. Growing medical bills are continuously leaving families in debt.

Virtually 50 million Americans are presently without any health insurance, and a great number of them with health insurance are struggling to pay for their medical bills. Everybody concurs that healthcare must be accessible to all citizens, but the debate on whether the United States should adopt a universal health system still rages. According to the Institute of Medicine (2002), the U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee that its citizens have health care coverage. President Obama pledged to reform the country’s healthcare system by increasing health coverage and

HMOs have been in existence since the late 1800s. The first example of an HMO was in the Western Clinic in Tacoma, Washington. They offered plans to lumber mill workers and employees in 1910. They offered them certain medical services from their providers. The premium was only 50 cents per member per month. The very first actual HMO was formed in Los Angeles in 1929. It only provided services to the LA Department of Water and Power as well as the LA county employees. Their premium was $1.50 per month. A lot of LA companies and services

Doctors were now working not only to provide an income for themselves, but to bring in profits for the insurance companies and hospitals as well.

The Managed Care System was introduced to control the cost for health services provided to individuals. Managed care controlled who the consumer would seek health services from, as well as the cost of the service provided. MCO’s became deep-seated when President Nixon signed the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) Act in 1973. The first type of managed care used were HMO’s and the purpose was to keep healthcare costs within limits. Physicians of course were against the Act. This would now control the fees that the physician would charge for the services they provide to the individual. As Managed Care evolved and increased in the amount of managed care plans that became available over the years. Physicians preferred guaranteed income as oppose

The essay presents the situation of the US Healthcare costs and how they relate to the citizens. A brief look at the authors sentiments reveals that the US citizens are suffering from inflated Healthcare costs that are slowly making healthcare quite expensive and inaccessible to those who are not insured. The author presents a report that American families spend an average of about $19393 on medical bills annually. The healthcare costs show that there is a rise in the costs for citizens covered by the medical insurance. In addition, the author exposes the level o expenses incurred accessing healthcare services in the US. The author presents remedy to the situation, arguing that an individual should choose the best medical cover to ensure that they are not bankrupt in the process of treatment.

Within the capitalistic economic structure that defines American commerce, the delivery of healthcare has largely shifted from an emphasis on public service to the pursuit of commoditized profit generation, but because good health is unlike any other product on the market the evolution of healthcare economics has been muddled by the advent of managed care. While the law of supply and demand reigns supreme in the exchange of traditional goods and services, emergency surgical procedures, prescription medications, and in-patient care are all provided through a relatively competition-free environment. The traditional model in which a Primary Care Physician (PCP) served the vast majority of his or her local community, providing the full spectrum of basic healthcare services from the delivery of infants to annual immunizations, precluded consumers from exercising that fundamental right guaranteed by capitalism: the ability to shop for the best deal. Despite the high costs associated with the microeconomics of the PCP model, Americans largely tolerated the proverbial monopolization of healthcare delivery because they invested a tremendous amount of trust in their PCPs, who in many small- to medium-sized towns developed lifelong relationships with patients, assisting their births, providing pediatric care, administering adult physical examinations, and even providing convalescent and end-of-life care to members of their community.