Financing-healthcare Homework Help

Financing-healthcare

The overall cost of health care is considered to be considerably high by economists, the news media, and other related parties. With rising health insurance premium, the situation doesn’t look to improve. It is with this view that calls for affordable health care have been made. The health care system in the United States is presently under a lot of pressure to reduce costs and increase the number of people who are health insured. This paper will address the need for reduction of health costs in the country, efforts by the government to do so, the role of PPACA in achieving this task and the health care costs in other nations compared to the United States.
Costs of health care
The cost of care would be most efficiently measured in considered in terms of a patient’s total cost of care rather than as a single specific service. One way that health care services can be offered at an affordable cost would apply when both the doctors and the hospitals work together such that their expenditure on the total care per patient decreases since unnecessary duplication of services will be avoided. The patients would enjoy less costs and seamless access and treatment. An example of such an approach is the providence of a seven-day-a-week care management as well as supportive clinical services. Making health care services available during the weekend would make a patient’s healing better and faster for them to return home sooner and avoid more costly and unnecessary additional stay. It is also recommendable to provide post-hospital discharge care such as follow-up on medication in-take and doctor appointments which would ensure that unnecessary readmissions do not occur.
High costs of health care often lead people to delay care. Others find it too high that they skip health care. The House and Senate health insurance bills attempt to reduce premium rates by for instance increasing competition, increasing oversight and introducing new accountability standards. Increasing tax credit for health insurance premiums is a measure that would make health care more affordable and accountable. In addition, the bills provide tax credits as well as reduced sharing for modest income families (United Health Group, 2010). Health reform, on the other hand, lowers premiums for families earning less than $44,000 and those earning more than $66,000. Families with income between an estimate of $55,000 and $88,000 get to receive less expensive premiums. The health reform plans to improve cost-sharing assistance for both families and individuals through provision of extra assistance to families that earn less than $55, 000. The additional funding offered to insurers will serve approximately 73 to 94 percent of the health care costs.
Another measure in the legislation that is aimed at making health care affordable is closing of the Medicare Prescription Drug. Seniors taking prescription drugs get to benefit a lot from the Medicare drug ‘Donut Hole’. However, many beneficiaries are left without assistance at a time that they need it most. Medicare halts prescriptions payments after the beneficiary has spent a little more than $2,500 on prescription drugs and only continues paying for prescriptions after the beneficiary has spent more than $4,550 from their pocket (Foster, 2010). Seniors are therefore left paying the total cost of expensive medicine and consequentially many people find themselves skipping doses or otherwise ignoring prescriptions.
Investing in community health centers would also help make health care accessible in underserved areas. The 2010 increased 5% funding for community health centers in the Senate bill would ensure more people access preventive and primary health care. This will avoid the extra costs associated with travelling long distances in pursuit of healthcare by people living in underserved areas.
Additional critical consumer protections added by the health reform on the Senate bill ‘grandfather’ policy prohibit rescissions, require child dependents below 26 years to be covered by some certain grandfather plans and bans lifetime limits placed on benefit payments. These additional consumer protections will go a long way in fighting certain health insurer practices, making it impossible for annual benefit limits to be imposed and coverage to be denied to certain people due to pre-existing conditions.
Both insured and uninsured American citizens stand to benefit from affordable health insurance coverage through the reduction of cost shifting. This applies when those with insurance in the end cover the health care cost of those uninsured. By increasing the stability and health care insurance of all Americans, the government would ensure that insurance company abuses are curbed completely.
Efforts to make health care affordable are not only limited to the government and labor organizations but also individual responsibility would go a long way towards realizing this requirement. The current health care system has strained many businesses (Foster, 2010). This applies as health care costs have eaten into their ability to employ workers, continue their investment in business as well as expanding their businesses. Employers are not mandated to provide health insurance in the Senate bill. However, the bill practices fairness by requiring employers with more than 50 employees to make payments in the cases that taxpayers support the insurance of health coverage for their employees. Individual responsibility would go a long way in ensuring health care is made affordable for every consumer.
The politics of the health care system in the United States
Many Americans consider the health care system to be in need of major repairs. Ninety percent of interviewed individuals believed that the system needed at least fundamental changes with thirty six percent of those advocating for a complete overhaul (United Health Group, 2010). The quality of health care is not the issue rather the individuals supporting major changes in the system do not approve of the costs associated with health care. Only less than twenty five percent of Americans find the costs they pay for health care to be satisfactory. The rest find it dissatisfactory that they get to pay for health care at so high a cost.
A majority of Americans believe that the government can do a lot in fixing the health care system. Reducing health care costs is not the priority, according to two thirds of the citizens, but rather providing health insurance for all Americans seems to be the preferred solution (Foster, 2010). More than eighty percent of Americans favor the expansion of government programs with the aim of giving health insurance to all children that are uninsured. The number of people prioritizing the requirement of the government to offer health insurance for all over keeping health care costs down is sixty five percent (Grant, 2009). This shows that a majority of Americans prefer health insurance to be provided to all first before the government can even start to think about reducing health care costs.
The Democratic Party has played a big role in supporting changes in the health care system compared to the Republican Party (Roberts, 2010). An estimate of thirty four percent would advocate for providence of health insurance coverage, twenty eight percent think reduction of health care costs should be prioritized while eighteen percent prefer the quality of health care to be improved with a similar number saying Medicare prescription drug benefit should be improved.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The PPACA is a federal statute in the United States that was signed by President Barack Obama in the year 2010 together with other related laws with the aim of achieving a number of health care reforms. This legislation is considered to be a solution to the calls for insuring the uninsured residents (Foster, 2010). The uninsured residents stand to benefit a lot from these legislation especially illegal immigrants who constitute almost one third of the entire population in the United States. In addition, they will be exempted from the health insurance mandate but their eligibility for emergency services stipulated in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 will remain. Already progress has been observed from this legislation as indicated by the Census Bureau in 2011 that found that individuals between 19 and 25 years that were uninsured had declined by one point six percent (Foster, 2010).
It is estimated that the total health expenditure of the nation will increase by a significant margin between 2010 and 2019 once the legislation is implemented. Since health care costs continue to rise, the government expects to be under a lot of pressure in the coming years from health care consumers who will desire a reduction in these high costs. The projected increase in national health expenditure gives hope of reduced medical costs although it does not entirely guarantee that pressure of high health care costs will diminish entirely. The current spending on health care does little to ease the pressure on health care consumers. It is with this view that the PPACA is considered to play a significant role in reducing health care costs in the future.
With the introduction of a mandate for large businesses to offer health insurance to their employees, health consumers feel that they will now be able to access health care at affordable costs. Individuals not purchasing insurance will be required to pay a tax penalty and businesses with more than 50 employees not offering insurance to their workers will be fined two thousand dollars for every employee. The PPACA will also increase Medicaid coverage hence increasing the number of people who are health insured. Following the implementation of the PPACA, it was projected that more than 16 million people would be added to the beneficiaries of Medicaid. Health Insurance Exchanges are also expected to lower insurance costs from the competition they will create once they provide easily accessible information and allow individuals as well as businesses to join together in making purchasing decisions.
Health economists in America are of the view that although health spending per Capital is high in the country compared to other high-income nations; similar rates of spending growth are to be expected in the long-term. Looking at the historical spending per Capita, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States were countries with the highest health spending per capita in 1970. By 2002, the United States’ spending per Capita had risen to more than $5,000 which was far higher compared to that of the second highest (White, 2007). Presently the spending per capita experienced in the United States is far higher than of any country placed in the second position. Over the last four decades the real health per Capita spending in America has had an annual 4.3 percent growth. This may be partly attributed to population aging, technological advance in medicine, changes in health care financing and general growth of the economy. Population aging does not explain the growth in health spending per capita much but nevertheless it plays a role. General economic growth, though can explain approximately half of the growth. The United has experienced considerable economic growth in the four decades. With consequent economic growth spending on health care has increased as consumer calls for reduction of health costs and insurance coverage for more citizens increased (White, 2007). Advancement in medicinal technology is also a factor as more expensive and sophisticated technology has had to be funded by the government.
As a result of this increase in health spending per capita, Americans have come to experience reductions in health care spending and more people have benefited from health insurance. Compared to other countries with high-income such as the Britain, Switzerland and Canada, the United States is considered to offer lower health care costs to its citizens. Despite the high number of individuals complaining about the health care system in the United States, the system is considerably satisfactory when compared to health care systems in other countries. The complaints arise from the high expectations of American citizens placed on their government.
Conclusion
A number of changes in the health care system in the United States would go a long way in ensuring that overall costs are reduced. Sample institutional efforts include post-discharge care, the need for doctors and hospital to work together and inclusion of weekend care for faster and more efficient treatment. Post-discharge care would reduce unnecessary readmissions hence saving the patient additional costs incurred from readmission. The government also has policies set to ensure that the costs of health care stay down such as the additional policies introduced in health reform overcoming rescissions, banning lifetime limits placed on benefit payments and promoting insurance coverage of child dependent below 26 years. The PPACA as a legislation has also committed efforts to improve the quality of health care, reduce health care costs and provide health insurance to more nationals. Compared to other high-income nations, the United State provides more affordable health care with additional efforts to increase the number of health insured people being applied.

References
Foster, R. S. (2010). Estimated Financial Effects of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” as Amended, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Grant, L. (2009). Health Care Special Interest Groups in the Legislative process. Healthcare Musings. Retrieved March 10, 2012 from: http://www.healthcaremusings.com/
Roberts, J. (2010). Poll: The Politics Of Health Care. CBSNews. Retrieved March 10, 2012 from: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-2528357.html
United Health Group, (2010). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 An Overview of the New Health Care Law Enacted March, 2010. Retrieved March 10, 2012 from: http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/hrm/Health-Care-Law.pdf
White, C. (2007). Health Care Spending Growth: How Different Is The United States From The Rest Of The OECD? Health Affairs. Retrieved March 10, 2012 from: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/26/1/154.full