Interest And Ideological Opposition : The American Medical Association Of America

Health care has been a controversial topic of discussion for all Americans since it was put in effect many years ago. Currently the biggest debate of Healthcare up to date is Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a Health care Reform that is a governmental attempt to make basic health care easily obtainable. However, there are no benefits without cost in situations like this, and upon that are different viewpoints on the subject thus creating political debates discussing if it is ethically correct. The overall goal that Obamacare hopes to accomplish is that through specific changes through insurance companies, industry standards, and patient guarantees a healthier America will be produced. Obamacare has its ups and downs for both the generally agreeing democratic viewpoints and the opposing republican side. Both viewpoints have their own beliefs about how Health care works and Obamacare is somewhat in between on this. Most arguments on Obamacare deal with Medicaid being constitutional and if Obamacare truly reduces the total cost of health care for individuals and in the government.

The comparison between health care in the United States and health care in Canada has been a continuing debate. America does not have a universal health coverage plan for it's population, while Canadians are privileged to have universal health coverage. Normally a patient will pay twice as much for health coverage in the United States compared to treatment in Canada. This puts the US in first position of having the most expensive health care system on earth. (http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/health-care-for-all/has-canada-got-the-cure) Most of the population in the United States have no health coverage at all. Compared to Canada, the wait time for elective procedures in the United States is somewhat longer. Many Americans feel the

A national health care system in the United States has been a contentious topic of debate for over a century. Social reformists have been fighting for universal health care for all Americans, while the opposition claims that a “social” heath care system has no place in the ‘Land of the Free’.

The Canadian healthcare system was first established in the late 1940’s and is made up of socialized health insurance plans that provide coverage to every Canadian citizen. Publicly funded and managed, rules are set forth by the federal government. In the 1960’s, Canada in essence, has had universal healthcare coverage for all services provided by physicians and hospitals. Change your source ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada 2014) Whereas, the healthcare system in America originated in the 1800’s, but truly wasn’t established until the late 1920’s. Healthcare in America was initially for teachers for a low cost in Dallas Texas by Justin Kimball. Change you source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/) Healthcare in the United States is mostly privately funded with only a few publicly funded entities such as Medicare and Medicaid. The Canadian and U.S. healthcare system s have been under a lot of scrutiny over the years, being the topic of every political conversation. In this essay, I will write about the main differences between the U.S and Canadian Health-care system, and help shed some light on how each system works. The main points I will be discussing are the wait times to see a primary care physician, the funding of each countries health care system, accessibility to medical care and the quality of care.

Health care spending in the United States of America as a percentage of the economy has reached astonishing heights, equating to 17.7 percent. This number is shocking when compared to other counties; in Australia health care is 8.9 percent, in United Kingdom 9.4 percent, in Canada 11.2 percent. If the American health care system were to hypothetically become its own economy, it would be the fifth-largest in the world. While these statistics sound troubling, they lead us to look for answers about the problems surrounding our system. The first health insurance company was created in the 1930s to give all American families an equal opportunity for hospital care and eventually led to a nationwide economic and social controversy that erupted in the 1990s and continued to be shaped by the government, insurance companies, doctors, and American citizens. In this paper, I will go in to detail about the various opinions regarding the controversy, the history behind health insurance companies, and the main dilemmas brought out by the health care crisis. Greedy insurance companies combined with high costs of doctor visits and pharmaceutical drugs or the inefficient hospitals all over America can only describe the beginning to this in depth crisis. Recently, the United States health care industry has become know for the outrageous costs of insurance models, developments of various social and health services programs, and the frequent changes in medicinal technology.

The New York Times printed an article by Robert Pear, which reported that on December 24, 2009, the US senate passed the first bill, which would call for major reform regarding health care in the United States (Pear). The article titled “Senate Passes Health Care Overhaul on Party-Line Vote,” discusses the fact that while this step was a major milestone in the process of providing Americans with affordable heath care, it was not the end of the road. Over the coming months and years there would be a lot of give and take between democrats and republicans to revise the bill to the point where both sides could support it. One of the major points in this reform is that the US government was now going to offer affordable plans including subsidy options which would allow more Americans affordable options which were

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.

Long before the 1990s when Ms. Clinton fought for a Universal Healthcare system in America, the issue of America’s healthcare had been a political quandary. The enactment of the Republican administration’s Health Management Organization Act of 1973 was a weapon meant to address that crisis, yet, it did little to fix the problem. While the liberal Democrats are fighting for Universal Healthcare coverage for all Americans, the conservative Republicans are fighting to maintain the current private health insurance, however, with some revamping of the system, which preserves the capitalistic element of the status quo. The reason for the two opposing views stems from their differences in political ideologies, which theoretically is like pitting socialism against capitalism. While the liberal Democrats’ endorsement of Universal Healthcare system is socialistic in practice, the conservative Republicans’ fight to retain the private or market based plan is unarguably in support of their pro-capitalism stance. The truth, however, is that, though almost every American believes in capitalism, yet, almost none would vote to disband the Medicare and the Medicaid programs, both of which are socialistic. In that light, the argument of a pro-capitalist nation is negated, as we do already have a socialized healthcare program for the seniors and the poor. Extending that concept to include

Health care reform has been a hot topic in recent years and more so with the expansion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The debate that arises from the health care reform concerns which two perspectives, pro-government or pro-free enterprise, will best allocate resources to improve access, cost, and quality of care. I strongly believe the majority who favors each given group is influenced by their individual background. For those people who have grown up with health insurance, they most likely believe it is an individual responsibility, whereas people who struggle to be insured could benefit from a central role through the federal government and feel it is their right as an American citizen to receive such

Canada’s health care system “can be described as a publicly-funded, privately-provided, universal, comprehensive, affordable, single-payer, provincially administered national health care system” (Bernard, 1992, p.103). Health care in Canada is provincial responsibility, with the Canada Health act being a federal legislation (Bernard, 1992, p. 102). Federal budget cuts, has caused various problems within Medicare such as increased waiting times and lack of new technology. Another problem with Medicare is that The Canada Heath Act does not cover expenditures for prescriptions drugs. All these issue has caused individuals to suggest making Medicare privatized. Although, Canada’s health care system consists of shortcomings, our universal

Many of today’s arguments within the American government have to do with health care. The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare or The ACA, has been effective since March 23, 2010. Most of Obamacare’s major provisions, such as mandated individual coverage, just took effect at the beginning of 2014. Democrats support the health care reform while a majority of republicans are entirely against it. On paper the health care reform looks good, but there are a lot of things that could potentially hurt the American population. Our founding fathers never had a debate over healthcare and frankly I don’t think it should be a topic of discussion today. The way healthcare has worked in the past is still working today and I see no reason to

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

The health care system in the United States is one of the greatest concerns facing Americans today and is an issue both moral and economic in nature. Some think the system should stay, for all intents and purposes, the same. They believe that the right to healthcare is a stepping stone toward socialism, and that it is the responsibility of the individual to obtain health care. These are usually the more ideologically conservative citizens and politicians who believe that medicine should remain a free enterprise, not to be constrained by government interference. Then there are those who believe that healthcare is a right, and the federal government has a responsibility to make sure it is available to all citizens, not just those who can afford

“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

During the beginning of this era, reformers had the support of President Theodore Roosevelt who thoroughly believed “that no country could be strong whose people were sick and poor”. In 1915, a bill was proposed by the American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) that limited coverage to working class individuals whose annual income was less than $1200 a year and included hospital services, sick pay, maternity benefits, and funeral expenses (Palmer, 1999). This system was believed to “relieve poverty caused by sickness” and would “yield a net savings for society” that would benefit not only citizens but businesses as well (Toland, 2014). Opinions on the AALL bill were mixed. The American Medical Association (AMA) was included in the formulation of the bill, leading them to create a committee whose entire aim was to assist the AALL but a disagreement over physician payment led the AMA to redact their support (Palmer, 1999). The American Federation of Labor continuously spoke against universal health care, fearing that it would result in complete state supervision over citizen’s health and would undermine current worker unions and the benefits they provided. Within all of this was also the strong opposition of the private insurance industry which, oddly enough, rested on the inclusion of death benefits in the AALL bill which had