The Nature Of Healthcare Policymaking In America

The difference between them was that the Medicaid program guarantee some health insurance for the poor and the Medicare program guarantee health insurance for the elderly. Even with those programs covering the most vulnerable, 48 million Americans in the 21st Century do not have health insurance. The people on the far right will argue that free market capitalism is the best approach, allowing pure competition will drive down costs, and consequently this will allow more people to buy affordable health insurance, but not everyone agrees with this notion, the opposition believes that healthcare is a guarantee and not a responsibility, that is a right as a human being, therefore the government through the peoples’ representation should have a system in which everybody should have free access to healthcare. To get free access the government has to use tax money to pay for the program. People on the right views this as a

Medicaid, which is a separate federal funded insurance was intended to cover low-income, aged, blind, disabled individuals, parents, and their dependent children on welfare. However, the senior citizens are the population group most likely to be living in poverty, and only about half of these individuals have insurance coverage. The difference between 1965 and now, of course, is costs. Years ago spending more on health care in result covering more people were the whole point. The administration wants to broaden coverage, but cut spending.

President Obama’s pledge to pay for the program by taxing the rich, who is anyone that makes more than $1 million a year (which would include President Obama) and will make for “a marketplace that provides choice and competition” (Conniff, 2009). He also proposes that reform is about every American who has ever feared losing their coverage if they become too sick, lose their jobs or even change their jobs. It’s realizing that the biggest force behind our deficit is the growing costs for Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

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

In today’s day and age, American households can all agree that health insurance is not a luxury, but a necessity. Without it, costs of emergency room visits and prescription medicines can be financially devastating. However, in the past many families and individuals have taken the risk of not being insured due to the high cost of the insurance itself. To attempt to reform this unfair system, the Obama administration signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law, coined “Obamacare,” has received much opposition due to its expansion government programs and increase in spending. It brings to question how much the government should be involved in an area that for the majority of America’s history, has been

Today’s political landscape is more polarized than ever before. The age-old tradition of compromise and “reaching across the aisle” seems to be more and more unlikely. Nonetheless, there has been no issue more polarizing than healthcare. It is a policy that has traditionally created a rift between the Republican and Democratic parties since its inception in the 1960s. With a majority in both Houses of Congress, the Republicans look to overturn Obamacare as their first priority. Congressman Tom Price 's (R-G.A.) 's introduced the Empowering Patients First Act in 2015, legislation that will completely overturn Obamacare. Recently, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) unveiled the first page of the Republican alternative to Obamacare. It is essential

This paper will discuss the early years and failed efforts that transformed the Medicaid program into what is seen today. A comparison between Medicaid and Medicare will be brief but is necessary because there are significant and critical differences between these government-funded insurance options. The substantial growth of Medicaid expenditures and beneficiaries are important and these trends will be looked at in detail. There have been provisions related to the unanticipated expansion of this program which will be reviewed. Attempts to expand Medicaid eligibility further need to be addressed (example: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). Stigmas that are associated with receiving Medicaid will be reviewed. I will share my

One of the most important and hotly debated policy points of the 2008 election season was that of healthcare reform. The badly ailing, highly wasteful and economically imbalanced American healthcare system has been in desperate need of a regulatory overhaul. This formed the basis of one of President Obama's defining electoral promises and paved the ground for the enactment of a major federal policy change. Following Obama's election, the new administration began work on garnering research and support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Passed into law on March 23rd, 2010, the new legislation would emerge as a highly contested, extremely dense and deeply complex body of initiatives that would not only show how politically and ideologically divided our leadership has become but also would serve as a perfectly representative demonstration of how healthcare initiatives become laws at the federal level.

Two of the most important things to know about the evolution of U.S. health policy is that is has evolved in a specific manner based on U.S. historical context and that it is often times made ineffective and fractured due to the political process. The historical context of America’s founding and its value systems should not be ignored when attempting to address the development of health policy in our country (Stevens, Rosenberg, & Burns, 2006). One of the first health “laws” in the U.S. was declared in 1610 in the Virginia Colony of Jamestown (Tarter, 2012). The larger portion of the declaration order by Sir Thomas Dale focused on strict governance of the colony. One small portion of the declaration focused on sanitation and strictly forbid certain acts such as laundering soiled clothing, cleaning cooking supplies, and defecating/voiding within a specified number of feet of water sources or public spaces. It appears from the very beginnings of what would become our nation, the government’s role in health care was primarily focused on the sanitation portion of public health. However, there were early legislative examples of Congress passing laws that mandated a type of health insurance or coverage by those who worked in the maritime industries (Ungar, 2011). The legislation titled “An act for the relief of sick and disable seamen” required that those working in this specific industry pay 1% of their earnings to the federal government, and the government utilized this tax to

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.

According to Professor and author Paul Starr, the debate against National Health Insurance was “intensely ideological” with each side of the argument focusing on the notion of the American ideal. Using the Affordable Care Act as an example, President Obama stated, “the core principle [is] that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health.” The ideological opposition for this stance was provided by congressional republicans who remarked that the passing of this policy would be a “major step towards socialism and aggressive government takeover of the health care system” (Barr, 2011, p. 11).

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

In the United States the issue of government funded healthcare programs has always been one of importance drawing attentions of many and involving myriads of debate sessions. Still now people take quite interest in dissecting and finally commenting on why Obamacare is a success and why Clintoncare/Hillarycare was not. But whatever may be the reason behind such indulgence, it must be analyzed why such a welfare effort like President Clinton’s healthcare plan ultimately failed even though having some great features which, if implemented properly, would have changed the course of healthcare policies in the United States for a considerable period of

With the presidential victory of Barack Obama in 2008, the Democratic Party was in a position they had long waited for, to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation.1 As Obama entered office, Democrats were eager for the opportunity to pass legislation. From the beginning, the Obama administration’s strategy was a simple plan, do the exact opposite of what the Clinton administration tried; the Clinton plan became a invaluable blueprint for what not to do in health reform.2 For example, while the Clinton administration fought an unsuccessful two-front war against the insurance industry and the small-business lobby, 3 the Obama administration sought to compromise with interest groups. In addition, the administration worked