Health Care Reform in the United States Essay

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

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.

A. To start off, currently, in the U.S., about 16 percent of our current population, which is about 44 million people, do not have any health insurance. To insurance companies, healthcare is not a right, like it is in countries like France, it is something that they just currently use as a profit. For them, customers are an asset, because unlike paying for a house or car, you never own insurance. Although the U.S. spends the most on insurance and healthcare, it still ranks as only 37th in the world for health care quality according to the World Health Report.

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 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.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act( PPACA) also known as Obama care is a healthcare reform signed in March 23, 2010 whose main goal is to conceptualizes the “ Universal affordable Healthcare Coverage “making significant impacts in the healthcare system. The purpose of this board is to discuss the challenges that effective leaders at different levels in the society should face on regards to

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.

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.

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

Health maintenance organization’s (HMOs) use of the primary care physician (PCP) as the “gatekeeper” initially had MCOs view restrictions as a negative approach to patients’ choices. However, some necessary steps have started to be implemented which reduce unnecessary utilization by enforcing some restrictions.

“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

Health care reform is not a new concept in fact it has a long history in this country and has been on many political platforms. In 1948 Harry Truman had national health insurance on his campaign platform as part of the new deal but it never came to fruition due to democratic opposition and socialist fears (Christiansen, 2012). In 1965 president Johnson did have some success with signing Medicare and Medicaid into the social security act as well as President Nixon with the Health Maintenance Organization Act (Christiansen, 2012). In the years following many other presidents have tried with little success to fill the gaps in health care coverage. Under President Reagan’s administration the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act attempted to help with prescription drug coverage only to be repealed in 1989. President Clinton also tried for insurance reforms but he could not gain enough support for his plans. In 2003 President Bush was finally able to sign in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act so that after 38 years seniors on the Medicare program would finally have prescription benefits (Thomas, Lee, & Lipton, 2004). Moving forward again to 2009 a bill was introduced and then signed by President Obama in 2010 is what is now known as the Affordable Health Care Act. It has been met with both praise and criticism.

This week's reading in regards to patients care was very educational in learning the struggles of millions of Americans in need of healthcare. The shift from fee-for-service to manage care such as HMO has made it difficult for patients to get the proper health care. Strategies used by HMO included restricting patients choices of physicians; controlling their access to care, limiting the treatments their physicians prescribed; limiting the doctors ability to refer them to specialists and evenually damaging the patient's trust in their doctors.

On August 29, 2016, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton released an impressive plan for addressing the issue of mental health care in the United States.1 This plan echoes numerous bipartisan bills that have been produced in Congress over the past several years and seems to be one of the few issues that both sides of the aisle can agree on.2 Earlier this year, a bill providing additional support to mental health care was passed in the House with a 422-22 vote,3 so it is now up to the Senate to pass its own reform. If lawmakers fail to send a bill to President Obama before leaves office, which is likely, the responsibility will fall on the next president to move forward. This sometimes-complicated checks and balances system between the legislative and executive branches, as well as the multitude of steps that must be taken to pass and enact new legislation, is essential to ensure a thorough vetting of the bill and its purpose while also playing an important role in the preservation of liberty.4 If this turns out to be Ms. Clinton, her stance on the subject is obvious. She and the lawmakers working on these issues already seem to agree on many important aspects; one of the biggest points of agreement being that treatment of mental and physical health should be given the same priority. Other aspects of Clinton’s plan focus on early diagnosis and intervention, federal support for suicide prevention, improved outcomes in the criminal justice