Health Care Reform Debate & the Pluralistic Prespective

Pluralism is based on the ideology that “competition among interest groups produces compromise and balance among competing policy preferences”. (Paletz, Owen, and Cook) Politically, pluralism the distribution of power throughout a government. A misconception is that pluralism

Health care has been an area of discussion for some time now. In the United States, the current health care system is a private system that allows individuals to choose their own method of care. Despite the freedom that comes with the independent nature of this type of health care system, the true disposition creates more problems than it solves. The privacy of the health care institutions has caused affordability and access to become serious issues with this system. Additionally, those with lower socioeconomic status fall short of the ability to access the same pool of resources as everyone else. Due to the issues with affordability, access, and the poor infrastructure of the health care system, a universal health

What started out as a much needed revision of the Health Care System has turned into a total overhaul which was not passed with bipartisan agreement. This division is reflected not only in the government, but among the people of the United States as well. Polls are taken daily and most of them show that the vast majority of Americans do not want the Health Care Bill. Due to the larger part of America not wanting this bill and finding the bill itself unconstitutional, many states have now filed a lawsuit against the federal government. More than a dozen states that have filed suit against the government believe that this bill violates the Constitution and many more states are considering joining the lawsuits. Some of these contend that the Health Care Bill infringes upon the Tenth Amendment. This amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people"(Dethrick 1). This amendment declares that the states have the ability to implement their own decisions despite what the federal government says. This lawsuit will prove to be a long and costly battle. Regardless of the results of this litigation, undoubtedly, the country will remain divided on this issue for years to come.

The Affordable Care Act was into law March 2010. The law has planned to make wide-range of changes to healthcare in the United States. The Affordable Care Act efforts to offer universal right to use to healthcare for Americans, control the rising costs of healthcare, adjust the private insurance industry complete things like state-based private exchanges and online marketplace that brings together state-approved insurance plans from multiple companies so consumers can shop for individual insurance plans, improve the quality of healthcare and make healthcare choices more consumer friendly and easier to understand (Medical Mutual,2017). Healthcare reform involves nearly all Americans from old or young,

In every day life one must make decisions, and with decisions there comes options from which to choose from. One decision from Texas that has caused concerned has ties to one of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act. This provision wants to expand Medicaid coverage to low income Americans. However, the Supreme Court ruled a decision to make the Medicaid expansion optional for states. Therefore, Texas opted out on this idea but is still indecisive on weather or not this expansion is beneficial to the state. As we all know factors like politics enter into the mix, as does the costs of the expansion, availability, and quality of care for these new “enrollees”. The idea of medical care for all seems like a simple effective idea, but the effects overall is detrimental to Texas citizens like myself and my family, who doesn’t necessarily fit into this “mold” of the uninsured citizen the act is trying to attract. The decision Texas made to not expand, in my opinion is a reflection of all citizens who feel that they will not benefit from this implicated Medicaid program.

The idea of passing the health care reform was to expand health care coverage, however, in order to do so, many changes must be implemented in order to fulfill the ACA 's promises. The first of which is allowing all individuals to acquire health insurance no matter the age, pre-existing conditions, or other unfair practices. Statistics show that “half of Americas” have a preexisting medical condition in which with the passage of the ACA, it allows individuals to acquire health insurance without the worry of having to pay high insurance bills (Moisse, 2011). The reason why having preexisting health conditions is no longer a factor in acquiring health insurance is because with the passage of the ACA (as discussed earlier, it was made a mandate to acquire health insurance) it is expected that it will balance out economically with the people who require more medical help to their healthier counterparts that do not require as much medical attention (Goodnough, 2016).

In this article, “Health Care Reform; Is the landmark new plan a good idea?”, written by Marcia Clemmitt, makes an appeal about the Health Care Reform Act, also known as the Affordable Care Act. She includes opinions from the critics, as well as supporters to help establish and give facts from both views to help citizens decide on the new act. Most of these critics and supporters decisions are politically based and not formed on personal issues (hopefully). The genre of this article gives off a professional tone to the reader. It was published by CQ Press, a Division of SAGE on June 11, 2010. The promising effects are detailed and explained, but the author does not establish a clear idea to let the reader know if she

HLST 2020 Power & Politics: Lecture Slides) Pluralism allows for a liberal democracy which gives political power and access to citizens; by allowing citizens to voice their struggles with social determents of health policy makers can create a progressive development in health policy to ensure a working solution. Another theory is New Institutionalism; a political process which the core structural foundation for politics, debates and development. Containing three main components such history, how the past shaped the future, sociological, how societal norms, regulation, shaping influences and culture affect modern society and policy development and finally, rational choice where economic powers, figures and positions determine effectiveness and development. Path dependency can arise from this theory more so than in Pluralism due to the historical, sociological norms and influences. Path dependency in New institutionalism would severely affect how social determents of health impact the population health of Canada as progressive policies and developments are just now starting to understand the effects of social determents. Should path dependency occur, historical preferences would focus more heavily upon health care sectors such as hospitals and clinics rather social determents such as housing or

In the first reading by Sarah Helene Duggin, compared the Obama care reform introduced by Obama and the New Deal reform introduced by Roosevelt. She highlights how these two reform are similar because in both there are two categories of people. There is people are favorable to the reform while other see the reform as a threat. For Sarah, these two cases have brought up major constitutional principles such as the separation of powers, taxing and spending power and Commerce Power. Finally, the author demonstrate that the opponent is these two reforms seems to be the business sector which see the reform as a threat for the economy. Nonetheless, the author claimed that the best way to ensure political accountability to the ACA is to allow the political process to take its course in congress and believe that constitutional question relative to federalism over individual power and limit of federal power shouldn’t impact the healthcare reform.

with the program that appear. Next, he contributes the loss of insurance plans that some

U.S. health care reform is currently one of the most heavily discussed topics in health discourse and politics. After former President Clinton’s failed attempt at health care reform in the mid-1990s, the Bush administration showed no serious efforts at achieving universal health coverage for the millions of uninsured Americans. With Barack Obama as the current U.S. President, health care reform is once again a top priority. President Obama has made a promise to “provide affordable, comprehensive, and portable health coverage for all Americans…” by the end of his first term (Barackobama.com). The heated debate between the two major political parties over health care reform revolves around how to pay for it and more importantly, whether it

“We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice, and provides coverage that every American can count on. And we will do it this year.” The preceding is a powerful statement from the newly elected President Barak Obama. One of the main aspects of both political campaigns was health care reform. The above quote shows passion and encouragement, but the quotes about health care do not end there. Georgian republican gubernatorial candidate and health care policy maker John Oxendine expressed: “Their proposal would virtually devastate the private healthcare sector in this country along with competition and patient choice, by replacing it with bureaucratic planning and government control. The result of this plan and its one trillion

Pluralist theory views politics and decision making as a competitive phenomenon where different groups and individuals have different views and that there is no single elite group that exercises influence (Davis & Go, 2009). The theory holds that power is relatively broadly distributed among different interest groups. These groups hold different views of the same aspect and compete with each other for

309). He thusly focuses on that it is shallow to take a gander at legislative arrangements issue by issue, as pluralists have a tendency to do. Rather, the genuine issues, he says, are such matters as motivation setting, asset assembly, and coalition building. Furthermore, Stone underlines that a discretionary coalition is not so much or ordinarily a sound premise for a representing coalition on the grounds that a constituent coalition might well be makeshift and have not very many assets to offer chose authorities. He sees the prime significance given to races by pluralists as one of the key refinements between administration hypothesis and pluralism (Stone, 1993; Stone, 2005a).

Who resists the call for change? Who defends the status quo? Doctors are among the most highly paid professionals in our society. The current system benefits them by limiting the education and licensing of doctors, thus creating low supply in the face of increasingly high demand. Insurance companies, with the input of physicians, determine the rate of reimbursement for physician services. Health care corporations continue to be good investments, despite the recession. The pejorative term “socialized medicine”, first coined by a “free market” focus group opposing President Truman’s attempt to create a government sponsored health care system in the 1940’s, has successfully forestalled change by frightening the public with images of inept and oppressive governmental interference in health care. The current system, unjust, inadequate and expensive, continues to profit the few ( doctors, pharmaceutical corporations, hospital corporations, HMO’s politicians) to the detriment of all. This is a rank issue. Who profits the most resists change the most, and uses rank to influence and obstruct. The medical-industrial-congressional complex, which comprises-----of our gross domestic product, overtly and covertly, opposes change which threatens their interests (“profits”) opposes health care reform and justice. They have the money, the access to influence at the highest levels of government, and they have used a profit seeking media effectively to influence citizens to preserve the status