Healthcare : A Great Deal

The paper will discuss the evolution of health care in America and how it has affected the health care system today. It will discuss the advancements made in technology and medical services that have evolved over two centuries. It will review how health care delivery has evolved and impacted today’s health system. The delivery of medical services has changed over many decades. The culture, social economics, and political views, have influenced society on how the medical services and advancements in medical technology have evolved. The three phases of health care structural change is preindustrial era, postindustrial era, corporate era (Shi & Singh, 2013).

Medicare and Medicaid are programs that have been developed to assist Americans in attainment of quality health care. Both programs were established in 1965 and are federally supported to provide health care coverage to vulnerable populations such as the elderly, the disabled, and people with low incomes. Both Medicare and Medicaid are federally mandated and determine coverage under each program; both are run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency ("What is Medicare? What is Medicaid?” 2008).

The United States health care system is lacking the needs to create a reliable system to achieve quality, access, cost, and educate for the consumers. Despite the efforts of the government to find a common ground to meet the standard for the societies, the system has yet to have a major improvement. These issues must be reexamined to fix the broken system. The United States health care expenditure is another issue that needs to be addressed to achieve the future goals of the healthcare system in the United States. Healthcare societies will need to interact differently by incorporating consumer’s empowerment, technology, and education to meet the future goals of the health care system. Also, the consumer must be highly educated on the purpose of preventive care to lower the risk of chronic diseases which account for a lot health care spending. The process of correcting the United States health care system will take time and effort from all individual to achieve greatness.

One of the issues is the increasing cost of healthcare which is dominating the health policy in U.S. this is accompanied by an increase in spending on healthcare. According to projections by the government, the spending on medical care will continue to rise. U.S spends more money on health care than any other nation globally (Holtz, 2013). The increase in the spending is as a result of improved tools for disease diagnosis, better surgical interventions among others. This raises an issue for the policy makers on the maximum GDP percentage that a country has to spend on healthcare, and whether the nation will afford the cost that is continually growing. In contemplating any change in the health policy, policy makers should consider the cost of the healthcare and the ability of the nation to support that high cost.

In this research paper it will identify how Medicaid came about and what Medicaid used for, the different between Medicare and Medicaid, the benefits and disadvantage in the use of Medicaid. Medicaid is a state administrated program that provides medical support for a broad range of people. Medicaid was established in 1965 through the Social Security Act, which was an act to provide for the general welfare by creating a system of senior citizen benefits as well as low income people not all but limited to and by enabling that many states to make more acceptable provision for aged people, blind, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, and public health. Medicaid program was one of many programs created to

The Medicaid in first place was created as safety net. It was created by President Johnson to help with medical services and make wider services for people of all ages (LBJ, 2012). He promised people that it would improve healthcare for Americans. It was created as a program that helped people deal with their medical cost if their income and resources were limited. Unlike Medicare, this program was created to help with more long-term and personal care services (CMS, 2015). It was created to help people with more everyday kind of service, more detailed and more specific. Mainly was there in first place to help and support Americans with low-income, and later on lot more guidelines and changes began happening to Medicaid.

The increase of expenses - As politicians continue their dissension amongst each other, the situation is worsening in our healthcare system. According to the World Health Organization, to achieve universal health coverage, countries need a financial system that enables people access to all types of health services without incurring financial hardship (Carrin, Mathauer, Xu, & Evans, 2011). This idea would be the foundation of innovative ideas that the U.S. could reform its healthcare system, but too many ideas are sabotaging any valid efforts. In the mean time, the U.S. healthcare system continues to deal with issues such as the increasing uninsured Americans (over 49 million), expensive administrative procedures and the inability to measure the accuracy of quality of care, access of care, and the increasing healthcare spending and financing that limit our ability to efficient utilize resources.

There have been government programs in the past which have also attempted to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. Two such prominent programs are Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare provides health care coverage to the elderly, while Medicaid provides coverage to the poor. They were endorsed by President Johnson. However, even with the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid, which were enacted in 1965, there are many who are still uninsured (“Affordable Care Act”) . One of the goals of the Affordable Care Act was to help such individuals receive health care coverage. While attempting to garner support for the law, many of its advocates, including President Obama, also promised that those who already had coverage they were content would be able to keep it.

Over the recent years number of American are without health insurance has increase significantly. The resent growth of uninsured American is mainly due to unemployment and permanent disables. At that, most American are employed, fulltime and still making the decision not to have insurance because some think it is the federal government responsibility. Today, the United State has over twenty million of American uninsured. In 2009 over thirty-five million were uninsured. The Afford Care Act ongoing issue on whether the government should provide health care for uninsured. The aims of Affordable Care Act were to ensure that all seniors have healthcare insurance, and to improve the health care delivery systems.

Health care can be described as a continued maintenance and advancement of overall health through constant provisions of medical services. Health insurance is very much needed as it serves as a protection for covered services (1279, Bonewit-West). It is important to have health insurance as it covers costs and you will pay less. Among some of these health insurances there are Medicare, Tricare, Medicaid and they all protect from financial loss without health insurance medical care would be costly. For the most part, financial burdens are mainly due from health care costs especially a burden for low income families, it has become an increasing problem regarding to this in 2010 they created the Affordable Care Act which would change the health care industry and improve the lives of others.

Medicaid and Medicare are two different government programs. Both programs were created in 1965 to help older and low-income families be able to buy their own private health insurance. These programs were part of President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” plan, a commitment to helping meet the needs of individual health care. They are social insurance programs, which allow the financial load of patient’s illnesses to be shared by other healthy, sick, wealthy, and lower income individuals and families.

United States health system, the biggest in the world, employs most up-to-date and state-of-the-art technologies in healthcare. US is the world leader in research and development in biomedical field. The magnitude of the research in healthcare and medical innovations that come out of US, in general have been the largest. US contributes, influences and drives medical research in various parts of the world with great emphasis on quality of human life. US pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have access to biggest markets in the world and yet Americans spend more than 17% of country’s GDP towards healthcare, the largest in the world. In spite of that, US healthcare system suffers from complex rules, less coverage and no real cost

Medicare is a program establish by the federal government to provide health care for people who cannot afford to get health insurance. According to Medicare & Medicaid Services” On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the bill that led to the Medicare and Medicaid.” Eligible are people with disabilities, senior citizens, and underage. Furthermore, Medicare was meant to be a salvation to reduce the suffering of low-income individuals, but it costs federal administration billions of dollars every year, and the numbers keep increasing. According to Medicare & Medicaid Services," Medicare spending grew 5.5% to $618.7 billion in 2014.” Afterward, Medicare covers everything from doctor visits to necessary surgery and drugs. For that reason, a countless number of people desire to get it, but they cannot qualify for it. For instance, the average income for minimum wage employee in Arizona is sixteen thousand a year. Because that employee exceeds requirement

Healthcare industry in United States has been an important industry for a long time. It is one such industry that has representation from both public sector and private sector. The current health care system is segregated and fragmented in America. Some states have very effective and efficient healthcare system while some states lack the desired infrastructure. The evolution of healthcare system in USA can be traced back to 1750. The period from 1750 to 1849 is termed as preindustrial period where the care of sick people was primarily handled by families (Brian, 2010). The period of 1850 to 1969 is termed as postindustrial period which reflects the growth of organized medicine and systematic healthcare delivery.

The healthcare system plays a key role in the economic stability of our country, as every year trillions are spent in attempt to combat disease and health issues that plaque humanity. As it makes up a significant amount of the expenditures in the economy, so the costs associated with health care of those in pain from illness and injury, including lost productivity, increased need of assistance in living and also the cost of death in some cases, is important to the economic stability and over all standard of living in our country. The key to economic prosperity is balancing the need for care with the costs of illness to keep as many people healthy and well without breaking the bank of collective society. The costs of healthcare have been increasingly problematic in recent years with so many issues surrounding the current system. With the “total health care spending in the United States expected to reach $4.8 trillion in 2021, up from $2.6 trillion in 2010 and $75 billion in 1970, meaning that health care spending will account for nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or one-fifth of the U.S. economy, by 2021” (Aetna). With this in mind it is apparent that as we look at the trillion-dollar industry of the medical community it seems that it needs to be a major focus of our nation as a whole and with the many issues come many creative solutions. First let us analyze the reasons behind the current cost and the major problems facing this industry and than discus what