Health Care Reform in Politics Essay

LEADER’S EFFECTIVENESS USING UTILITARIANISM AS THE ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING APPROACH IN REGARD TO THE HEALTHCARE CHALLENGES SET FORTH BY THE PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT OF 2010

Medicare and Medicaid has been providing huge benefits for senior citizens and low income families. The one question nobody seems to answer is how are we going to afford this type of insurance? Maya Rockeymoore argues in her article, “Groundless Fears about Medicaid and Medicare,” that we are able to afford this as long as we make good decisions. Rockeymoore claims that we need to keep Medicare and Medicaid or our country will fall apart.

Medicare is a program created by the Social Security Act of 1965. It is a federally run medical health insurance program aimed at medical coverage for senior citizens over 65 years of age. Over the years, the program has expanded to cover other beneficiaries such as individuals with disabilities and has also evolved to add prescription drug benefits. The program has been immensely successful in bringing health services to millions of senior citizens and individuals with disabilities. Despite this success, Medicare has faced a myriad of challenges most importantly budgetary projections that predict a rise in Medicare cost due to the “Baby Boomers” becoming eligible while having fewer workers per retiree to fund Medicare. The government has turned to managed care plans in cost saving measures and to bolster the quality and efficiency of their Medicare. While this summary might not exhaustively delve into the complicated web of Medicare but it will highlight what is looming in the horizon; the struggle to find new and innovative ways to finance Medicare for future generations without burdening beneficiaries or taxpayers.

For the last five years of my life I have worked in the healthcare industry. One of the biggest issues plaguing our nation today has been the ever rising cost of health care. If we don't get costs under control, we risk losing the entire system, as well as potentially crippling our economy. For the sake of our future, we must find a way to lower the cost of health care in this nation.

Through the years doctors’ and pharmaceutical companies have become greedy. Doctors diagnose patients, prescribe medications, and send them to pharmaceutical companies that charge high prices for medications that help maintain their well-being. Although over half of our elderly individuals with Social Security and Medicare benefits are already struggling to accommodate their ends. Therefore a reform of both Social Security and Medicare needs to take place before it is too late. Social Security and Medicare funding will be the most important problem that America will face in the coming decade.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) had mame dramatic changes in the field of the health care system, especially in Medicare, that will seriously take effect in American seniors. Indeed, much of the health law’s new spending is financed by spending reductions in the Medicare program. In addition to the provider payment reductions, Obamacare significantly reduces payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans by an estimated $156 billion from 2013 to 2022.( Elmendorf, letter to Speaker Boehner). About 27 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in MA plans, a system of regulated and private plans competing against each other as an alternative to traditional Medicare. MA plans are attractive to beneficiaries because they offer more generous and comprehensive coverage than traditional Medicare by capping out-of-pocket costs and offering drug coverage to a rasonable

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

Health Care in America has recently changed by President Obama and reform and changes are heading our way. The Affordable health care act or better known as “Obama Care” is changing the way each American family access and our provided health care. America prior to the induction of this bill had about 15% of its population uninsured, and with one of the most profitable health care systems in place America leads the world in medical advances and technology. Those posses a serious problem, which is how does a country have such success in health care finically but its people remain sick? President Obama has changed that as of March 2010 by placing a Health care system that is going to change the current one to essentially benefit all

A powerful force for change can be created by embracing transparency. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, “transparency is a broad-scale initiative enabling consumers to compare quality and the price of health care services so they can make their own informative choices among doctors and hospitals. This initiative is laying the foundation for pooling and analyzing information about procedures, hospitals and physicians services. In order to create value driven health care, there are four steps to turn raw data into

The Federal Government became increasingly involved in health provision following the Second World War, with a focus on ensuring access and equity to health care. When Medicare was implemented in 1984, the Federal Government, States and Territories agreed to provide free health care for all Australians in all public hospitals.

Since its establishment in 1965 we have seen Medicare change as people’s needs change however being a federal program these changes do have an incredible amount of lag time. One of the first major changes to Medicare occurred in 1972 when President Nixon signed the Social Security Amendments of 1972 which extended coverage to individuals under age 65 with long-term disabilities, expanded benefits to include some chiropractic services and speech and physical therapy. During this time we see the American public growing tired of the Vietnam Conflict and lack of support and care for those returning Marines and soldiers with severe disabilities. As the protests escalate and the peace initiatives fail a key piece of legislation is signed showing government support and a willingness to extend health care benefits to this growing and vocal population of veterans (The Vietnam War, 1999). Also included in this Amendment is the encouragement of the use of Health Maintenance Organizations, President Nixon’s administration caught in the scandal of Watergate and pending hearings appeased the left and proposed the HMO Act, which Congress passed in 1973 (Phillips, 2003).

The latest health care reform has done what few policies manage to do – sicken both republicans and progressive democrats. While we can all agree that a reform of the health care system is sorely needed, we must also acknowledge that “Obamacare” is not the cure-all we so desperately require. Rather, President Obama, like a medieval barber, prescribed a health care reform that treated the symptoms of our flawed system rather than the actual disease. The subsidization of health insurance providers has proven ineffective at providing affordable coverage for all. Certainly one is likely to hear the various incendiary talking points of both the proponents and opponents. Whether it’s the republican candidates blaspheming Obamacare as socialism, or the administration praising the success of health care for all, it is difficult to actually find constructive dialogue. We are purview to many sound bites, but few actual solutions. We have witnessed heated debates, but rarely do we witness intelligent discourse. If beneficial reform is to be crafted and implemented, we must first acknowledge the issues and inconsistencies of the current system and begin to explore alternate methods of providing health care to the American people.

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,

Since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, there has been a continuous debate about the effects it will have on the United States economy. Many people argue that expanding insurance coverage for all people will create crippling cost burdens for the economy and taxpayers. While others believe that the ACA will in fact give the economy a much-needed boost. In 2006 as a measure to improve overall healthcare, the state of Massachusetts implemented the Health Care Insurance Reform Act. This paper looks at the positive and negative effects of the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Act (MHRA). Using a literature review of public health studies ranging from 2009-2012, I argue that there are both positive and negative effects of the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform. While the Massachusetts Reform increased health insurance coverage for all citizens and decreased the number of uninsured citizens accessing emergency rooms, it also did very little to decrease already existing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities among minorities and whites in the state of Massachusetts. Understanding the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Act may help in the goal of trying to achieve near-universal healthcare. This paper provides an understanding of the missing pieces in the Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Act and constitutes a starting place from which to understand the Affordable Care Act.

The growing concern regarding the financial security of Medicare is one of particular interest to the nearly 72 million baby boomers that become eligible for this government-assisted, and tax-payer bolstered, program over the next two decades. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2010), there will be a rapid increase in baby-boomers between 2010 and 2030, as the entire baby boomer population move into the 65 years and over category (p.3). Political and financial revisions must be made to ensure the security of Medicare as the numbers of individuals paying into this program are soon to be surpassed by the number of individuals drawing-off this program (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The elderly are also at a disadvantage with transportation to health care visits, picking up prescriptions, and rehabilitation services. There needs to be an establishment of access not only to primary care providers, hospitals, and rehabilitation services, but access to other aspects of the health care system for the elderly population.