The Federal Government Should Not Pay For Its Coverage

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.

It is estimated that the ACA will provide new services to 64 million Americans, providing health care coverage to 32 million previously uninsured. In addition to providing new health insurance coverage, the ACA implemented several components that can expand access to health care. One policy

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.

25% or more of one’s income going toward health care is too much for today’s economy this

Many Americans were able to get health insurance even if they’re sick. Insurance providers would not be able to deny coverage to anyone who have any pre-existing medical conditions. With current President Donald Trump’s American Health Care Act already being active as law, many insurance providers can deny anyone with any pre-existing conditions such as “acne, diabetes, and pregnancy” (Chavez 2017). This example just proves that the American Health Care Act is a step backwards into achieving affordable health insurance. Other changes that are brought upon from this Act include: that states would be able to allow insurers to charge sick people more, and making it less affordable for some. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over 52 Million will be left uninsured due to unaffordable insurance plans mainly coming from the lower class (Levey and Kim 2017). The younger consumers would be charged 3x less than older consumers, but older consumers will be charged 5x more than younger consumers. Also in the Act, federal spending in medicaid and to Planned Parenthood would be defunded and would be left up to the states to decide if funding is needing in those areas. The defunding of those two factors will eventually decrease the nation’s deficit and use it in something where it is needed the most supposedly. With this said, this questions the fact that, “is the American Health Care Act honestly the most affordable way to get

“The amount people pay for health insurance increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while income for the same period of time only increased 3 percent.” (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The rising cost of healthcare is a huge problem in America today. In this paper I will analyze the different issues and causes for the increase in cost.

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss the current level of national healthcare expenditures and to determine if we as Americans are spending too much on healthcare. The author of this paper will provide examples and solutions where we as a nation should add or cut from the healthcare expenditures. This paper will also detail how the general public's healthcare needs are being paid for, the biggest economic healthcare challenge, why the challenge should be addressed, and how this challenge to be financed.

Obamacare is an unofficial name for the Patient Protection and ACA (Affordable Care Act) which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. The White House announced that in the first month, more than 100,000 Americans successfully enrolled in new insurance plans (The New America). That’s not even close to a quarter of the United States population. There have been problems with the website when it crashed. This prevented many Americans from completing the enrollment process. Which put a big hurt on the AC. But there is no question that there is a real demand for quality, affordable health insurance. In the first month, nearly a million people successfully completed an application for themselves or their families. An estimated amount 396,000 citizens have the ability to gain access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care

Through successful implementation millions of Americans would benefit from the imposition of health insurance through the ACA. The law intended to cover the poorest Americans under the Medicaid expansion option and to cover low and middle-income earners with new health insurance exchanges. However, in June 2012, the Supreme Court overruled a portion of this landmark victory by giving each state the option to forego the Medicaid expansion provision. The Court’s ruling creates a breach in the ACA’s potential to afford healthcare to the working poor and abandons those who do not quite qualify for market place subsidies. Consequently, a large segment of the United States population will remain uninsured due to the lack of affordability.

When President Obama was elected to office, he had campaigned on the promise of healthcare reform, and was rallying the government to deliver on that promise. Despite successes in increasing coverage for certain populations in the 1980’s and 1990’s, there was no substantial and sustainable reduction in the number of uninsured. In a speech during a joint session of Congress (2009), and before the signing of the ACA, Obama argued that a high uninsured rate had an impact on the American people, the healthcare system, and the economy. The symptoms of the 1/7 Americans without uninsured in 2008 were: negative impacts on citizens, manifesting in greater financial insecurity, unreasonable barriers to care, general poor health, and preventable deaths; the healthcare system was burdened with billions of dollars in uncompensated care; the labor force became concerned about insurance coverage when seeking education or entrepreneurship. healthcare costs were rising rapidly, from 13% of the economy devoted to

Based on the primary goal of Obamacare, more people will be insured under it. Five years after Obamacare was signed into law, the estimated number of insured individuals under the coverage and protections provided by the Affordable Care Act is more than 30 million (Blumenthal, Abrams, and Nuzum). The MSNBC also indicates that “millions of families have eagerly signed up for benefits through the ACA” (Benen). Meanwhile, the Washington Post releases that number of citizens without health coverage fell from 13.3 percent to 10.4 in 2014 (Bernstein). “That’s the largest single-year drop on record based on data going back to 1987”, according to the Washington Post (Bernstein). In the other words, The ACA has met its enrollment goals.

Despite the responsibility of healthcare being a power of the states, the national government created a market for privately owned businesses to provide insurance under an umbrella known as “Obamacare”. Obamacare was primarily comprised of the Affordable Care Act, or AFA. The Affordable Care Act, created by the Obama Administration, was passed in March 2010 under the premise that healthcare should be more available to American citizens. These target citizens being the over 50 million who were uninsured for various reasons before the passing of this legislation. They were able to do this by expanding the affordability through various regulations, taxes, subsidies, and other

In recent years, health care has been a huge topic in public debates, legislations, and even in deciding who will become the next president. There have been many acts, legislations, and debates on what the country has to do in regards to health care. According to University of Phoenix Read Me First HCS/235 (n.d.), “How health care is financed influences access to health care, how health care is delivered, the quality of health care provided, and its cost”.

One of the issues that is widely discussed and debated concerning the United States economy is the healthcare system. Unlike in the majority of developed and developing countries, the healthcare system in the United States is not public, meaning that the state does not provide free or cheap healthcare services. This paper addresses many of the factors contributing to the rising cost of healthcare.

US health care expenditures have been rising quickly over the past few years; it has risen more than the national financial system. Nonetheless a number of citizens in the US still lack appropriate health care. If the truth be told, health care expenditures are going to continue to increase; in addition numerous individuals will possibly have to make difficult choices pertaining to their health care. Our health system has grave problems that require reform, through reforming, there is optimism that there will be an increase in affordable health care and high-quality of care for America. Medicaid, Medicare and private sector insurances are all going through trials and tribulations because of