Health Care Reforms
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Health care reforms have been one of the divisive issues in the country. There has been numerous national debates and stalemates on the best ways to cure this ailing, yet so important, sector of the economy. Health care reforms have been characterized with political bickering between Congress and the White House. However, this notwithstanding, some reforms have been implemented that have hugely affected either directly or indirectly the public.
One of the major reforms in the health care sector has been the Affordable Health Care Act. This act becomes law after being approved by Congress and signed by the president. (Greenwald, 2010). The law seeks to strengthen Medicare, which supports older citizens who approximately 50 million of them, live with disabilities. The older citizens heavily depend on Medicare. The law seeks to make health care affordable to the citizens by cutting costs of health care by nearly $4,200 per person. In addition, the law recommends some services that are meant to prevent diseases be free to the senior citizens. Services like screening for diabetes, cancer and blood pressure will be free to the senior citizens; thus, improving tremendously health care services to the older citizens.
The health care law also seeks to lower the current high costs of prescription drugs to the older citizens. Older citizens cannot afford the prescribed drugs and as a result, they go without prescription. The Affordable Health Care Reform will as a result, offer discounts to these citizens especially, those with the highest costs of prescribed drugs. Moreover, this law will help in fighting some insurance companies who fraud taxpayers billions of dollars. The Affordable Health Care Reform aims to achieve this by establishing harsh penalties to those caught doing fraudulent deals in the health sector. According to Andersen, Rice & Kominski (2011), this reform offers strict screening procedures to the insurance firms in a bid to prevent fraud in the sector.
The law will hugely affect the lives of the citizens in all the states by improving the quality of health care and better coordination of health care in the country. The Affordable Health Care law establishes an innovation center for Medicare which functions, to develop a new health care structure that can be affordable and provides better health care to the citizens. This Medicaid Center has so far established16 health care models that are affordable for the Medicare beneficiaries throughout the country.
The Affordable health Care Law has some disadvantages too. According to the National Monitor, the implementation of this law will lead to a shortage of health care specialists by the year 2025. The rapidly aging population will increase the number of visitations to the health centers significantly straining the physicians and the health system. According to Greenwald (2010), this law will cause increases in drug costs because pharmaceutical companies will be incur extra costs in order to cover the gap of ‘donut hole’ patients. The drug costs will increase if these companies pass these costs to the consumers.
Another major change in the health care sector has been the Health Insurance Reform. These reforms have been designed to make health insurance more affordable to all the citizens. This act which was passed on health insurance, offers innovative policies to the citizens by offering health care insurance through the internet. This reform also provides citizens with a chance to purchase health care insurance that is offered in other states apart from the state a person is living in. This enables citizens to access affordable health care offered in other states as opposed to the previous situation where one could only access the health care plans of the state a person is living in.
However, the Health Insurance Reform will be difficult to successfully implement as it will require cooperation and coordination between states which at times, may be difficult to achieve. In addition, the health insurance reform may cause division between the private insurance companies and the government. So far many insurance companies have openly rejected this reform. According to Patel & Rushefsky (2006), these reforms have caused huge divisions in the public and across the political divide with the high class in society preferring their private insurance covers as opposed to government provided health insurance.
There have been reforms to provide proper medical care for children especially children from low-income families. Currently it is approximated that 6 million children do not have access to medical care according to Andersen, Rice & Kominski (2007). These reforms to provide care to children has ensured that children are enrolled in health care programs just like the adult citizens. The mental health reforms have ensured that those suffering from mental illness be taken care of the same way with other illnesses. These reforms have ensured that insurance providers offer mental health care in addition to other health care. These reforms have ensured that the emphasis is laid on mental illnesses the same way other illnesses are regarded because of the current huge number of people with mental problems approximated at around a million people nationwide.
Reforms on pediatric health have improved pediatric health of the citizens since the reforms became law. These reforms have increased funding in the sector to help improve pediatric treatment to children in addition to help in training pediatric specialists (Patel & Rushefsky, 2006). The Pediatrics Health Reform will increase health care to children with special needs as well as help eradicating chronic illnesses among children. These reforms will improve the number of pediatric specialists in the country.According to Greenwald(2010), Pediactric Health Reforms and the Mental Health Reforms have no major disadvantages unlike the Affordable Health Care and the Health Insurance Reforms.
References
Andersen, R, Rice, T. & Kominski, G. (2011) Changing the US Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
Greenwald, H. (2010.). Health Care in the United States: Organization, Management and Policy. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
Patel, K. & Rushefsky, M. (2006). Health Care Politics and Policy in America. New York, NY:
M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
