...Legal Studies ------------------------------------------------- Shelter THE RIGHT TO SHELTER AND THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENTS IN SATISFYING THAT RIGHT * The right to adequate housing applies to everyone. Furthermore, individuals, as well as families, are entitled to adequate housing regardless of age, economic status, and group or other affiliation or status, and enjoyment of this right must not be subject to any form of discrimination. * The right to shelter is clearly supported by international law. International recognition of the right to shelter was initially given in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Article 25 of the Declaration states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services”. * The UN CROC Article 27 (3) states that the government must provide material assistance and support programs where necessary, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing. * Article 11 of the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social, Cultural Rights (1966) states, “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this...
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...from hand written medical records, information has become more organized, more manageable, and much more easily accessible. Advancements in technology have allowed organizations to become more productive and more cost effective. Informatics has helped organizations in reducing their staff needs, ultimately saving them money. As healthcare IT continues to advance, patient safety, quality of care, and costs will continue to improve, and privacy and security will continue to be the goal for all electronic information. The use of electronic health information to improve the quality of care requires the exchange of electronic health records, which increases the need for security and privacy. Because of this, it was essential to establish collaborative governance guiding health information technology infrastructure (Rundio & Wilson, 2010) . The Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan addresses the role of healthcare informatics within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services promise to patient safety. The objective of the plan is to use healthcare informatics to make care safer and to continuously improve the safety of health IT (“HealthIT”, n.d.). The Health IT Safety Plan lays out actions that can be taken to improve the safety of health IT. The plan highlights improving knowledge of health IT safety, establishing and advancing health IT patient safety priorities, supporting research and development of tools and best practices, investigating and taking corrective...
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...Health Care Reform The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) The council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is an agency that is within the office of the President of the United States of America. Their main job is to advise both international and domestic policies by using formula and analysis on economic research and empirical evidence, using the best data available to support the president in setting out nation’s economic policies. After years of research, reports revealed that the market failure in the current healthcare system has imposed tremendous economic burdens on families, employers, and government at every level. One in every six Americans was without health insurance, healthcare spending was quickly skyrocketing, medical errors were excessive and administrative cost was enormous ("About cea.") The CEA reports also found that authentic healthcare reform has considerable benefits if slowing the growth of healthcare cost has the following components: Increase the standard of living by improving efficiency if resources are freed up that can be used to make other goods and services. Prevent dreadful budgetary ramifications and raise national savings. Finally, slowing the growth of health care cost would raise employment and lower unemployment now and later on without prompting inflation (whitehouse.gov) Labor A second component of healthcare reform, would increase the overall economic welfare of the uninsured extensively more that the costs of insuring them. In addition...
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...Services Industry Hospital Services Industry The hospital services industry has grown exponentially in the recent decades to become a major employer and income generator that can also effect the local and regional economic scenes. This extremely fast-growing sector of the United States has every reason to continue the current trend. This paper will analyze the current hospital services industry from an economic perspective and focus on potential points of improvement. Discussion The United States increased expenditures in the hospital services industry is growing at a concerning rate and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. According to the National Health Center for Statistics, the national health expenditure as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) has grown from 12.1 percent in 1990 to 17.4 percent in 2013 (National Health Center for Statistics, 2014). Economic growth can be measured by using the GDP and the United States’ GDP ratio allocated to health care has continued to rise faster than most other developed nation (Hockenberry & Thorpe, 2014). The continuous growth and comparison to other developed nation is the primary concern for economists. In order to obtain a clear picture of the growth it is beneficial to analyze health care data over the course of several decades. In the table below several data components are analyzed including: the total health expenditures, per capita health expenditures, health as a percent of GDP, health sector employment...
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...spending on health care has been the subject of discussion and scrutiny for several decades. The enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) was hardly the first fiscal policy for healthcare in the history of the economy. There is a long list of fiscal policy attempts from predecessors such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon and most recently Bill Clinton (Sparer, p462). In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt drafted amended provisions to his pending Social Security legislation to include publicly funded health care programs but ultimately removed the provisions due to opposition by the American Medical Association (Coombs, p5). Following the Second World War, President Harry Truman called for universal health care as a part of his Fair Deal in 1949 but strong opposition stopped that part of the Fair Deal (Peon, p161-168). On July 30, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the legislation establishing the Medicare and Medicaid program, social insurance programs administered by the United Stated government providing health insurance coverage to people who are either 65 or meet other special criteria for need (Roemer, p845). In October 1972, President Richard Nixon signed the Social Security Administration Amendments of 1972 which extended Medicare to those under 65 who have been severely disabled for over two years (Ball). The 1980’s saw the passage of The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) signed...
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... Health care reform is a political and economic topic that has been debated for years. Most recently in the United States under the president Barack Obama's current term he passed a law that most of us Americans refer to as Obama Care but is also known as the Affordable Care Act. This law requires every American to have some sort of health care coverage. However, is affordable health care really that affordable? There are some countries that have national health insurance systems where government uses tax revenues to provide a basic health care package. However, in America most citizens are enrolled in private health care Insurance usually provided by their employer. Health care provided by employers does come at a cost. It does drive up the cost of labor because it’s another cost incurred by the firm and sometimes the employee. Several companies I have worked for in the past have shared the cost of insurance; by doing this the firm does not incur all the costs of health care; the firm also avoids being fined for not providing health care. If the firm does not provide health care and has more than 50 employees the firm will incur of fine of $5,000. Thus, employers are essentially forced to either incur the costs of health care or pass part or all the costs onto the employee, therefore, decreasing the overall amount the employee actually makes. Some employers could use health care benefits as an enticement to keep their labor force strong. Two of the major economic problems...
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...Negative Economic Impact of the Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) also referred to as ObamaCare, federal healthcare law, Affordable Care Act, or ACA, is a United States federal Statute signed into law on March 23, 2010, by President Barack Obama. In combination with the Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act, it represents the most significant regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). The PPACA is intended to increase the number of health insured Americans and reduce the overall costs of healthcare. The PPACA will revamp the current health insurance system by extending health insurance coverage to nearly 32 million currently uninsured Americans; 18 million through Medicaid expansion to individuals with incomes under the 133 percent federal poverty line (FPL), and 18 million through government exchange subsidies to individuals with incomes up to 400 percent of the FPL. Citizens and legal residents in families with income between 100 and 400 percent of poverty who purchase coverage through a health insurance exchange are eligible for a tax credit to reduce the cost of coverage. To subsidize the additional 32 million individuals covered, the new law introduces 18 new taxes and penalties on individuals, employers, and businesses (Campbell). Though the PPACAs intent is to lower healthcare costs, it will...
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... March 13, 2016 The Healthcare Plight of the Hispanic Population in the United States Disparities in healthcare for Hispanic communities in the United States remains an alarming trend. Social and political inequities bare much of the responsibility of this humanitarian and economic crisis of healthcare. The burden of poverty, prejudice, racial discrimination, immigration status, language barrier, and lack of education are not easily solved and will continue until greater understanding of the complexities of Hispanic communities are better understood. With greater knowledge of the diverseness of this group and the application of social programs and awareness driven by stakeholders and Hispanic consumers of health, will divides be bridged and progress towards a healthier population be realized. This discussion will shed light on the rise of the Hispanic population and the continued barriers to equitable healthcare fostered by social and political disparities. This document will also outline an up and coming group with a potential for political leverage and a brighter future enabling future generations of Hispanics access to all levels of primary, secondary and tertiary care. Population and health status of Hispanics The Pew Research Center compiled findings from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey that showed 51.9 million Hispanics lived in the U.S. in 2011. This finding is an increase of 48% from 2000. In 2011 Hispanics make up 17% of the...
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...Eric Desmond How we got to Obamacare First Draft What to do about the rapidly rising cost of healthcare has been a hot button issue contentiously argued by the United States two major political parties. The culmination of the what to do about healthcare sees us two weeks into a government shut down with a small but determined faction of ideologue republicans threatening to default on our debt by not raising the debt ceiling unless President Barack Obama scraps the biggest piece of legislation he has gotten passed into law since his election in 2008, a bill, commonly referred to as Obamacare. The president, on the other hand, is saying he won’t pay a ransom for the federal government to open back up siting his reelection as vindication that Americans want this legislation to move forward. Social media is being used by both sides of the argument to spread doubt and fear or oversell the law so it is difficult to know exactly what is true and what isn’t. This paper is an attempt to summarize the major events in the healthcare debate that have brought us to this unprecedented point of government gridlock. The modern healthcare debate started in the early nineties with the presidential election of Bill Clinton. Then First Lady Hillary Clinton and the late Senator Ted Kennedy championed the movement. The belief held by the most liberal of democrats was that being an American citizen gave you a birth right to healthcare. Republicans conversely saw any government interference as...
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...that captures unsheltered persons experiencing homelessness. Last year's point-in-time count is the most recent national estimate of homelessness in the United States. As of January 2013, the national count of unsheltered people experiencing homelessness decreases by 11.6% between 2012 and 2013. There is a common misconception that homelessness is an issue that only pertains to single men and women, but in reality over 600,000 families a year will experience homelessness. The problems of family homelessness are not solely restricted to urban areas; rural area and suburban communities are increasingly plagued by the problem. The three main reasons for the abundance of dispossessed families within America are the following: 1) the lack of affordable housing, 2) poverty, and 3) mental illness. In today's society, these causes are the main contributors towards the heartbreaking conditions of family homelessness, which often leads to family breakups, health issues, and educational obstacles. President Obama recently addressed this vital issue when he stated, “It is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as well as ours” (Press Conference, Feb.2009). Homelessness is on the rise and will continue to...
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...oversight that alert regulators should have spotted problems and intervened to stop dubious lending” (Samuelson, 19). They also say that there were numerous incentives for regulators and investors to ignore the risks that were being taking, which entails a tremendous amount of greed on their part of the matter. The left also states that there was a ‘mindless devotion to free markets’. Now their opponents on the right side of the fence will argue that interest rates had been too low for too long, and that the housing bubble had to pop eventually. They also insisted that the government’s housing policy was to get as many citizens to purchase a house as possible. They used tax incentives, rebates, and low interest rates to get homebuyers to act. I felt it was important to mention what the left and the right believed caused the Great Recession of 2008-09. Once we look at this disaster from afar and under a microscope, we tend to notice the real causes of the Great Recession. First off, things had been way too good for way too long, and the old saying goes “A good thing never lasts”. It was bound to happen at any given time, whether we were ready for it or not. We, the consumers, were over borrowing more and more. With the low interest rates, buyers were able to purchase...
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...How Nurses and Physicians Influence Health Care Reform Deana Sykes King University In my opinion, nurses will have much more influence on health system reform than physicians over the next 10 years. Many believe that physicians are more influential because they are the decision makers and revenue generators. As Hackman (2010) expressed, “Combined with an aging population and an influx of patients into the U.S. health care system by 2016, a direct result of the Affordable Care Act, we will face an unavoidable shortage of primary care physicians. The physician shortage will be further complicated by the high attrition rate of the profession. I believe this will be the time that nurses, unified in numbers, can be the most influential. Inevitably, Advanced Practice Nurses, DNPs, Nurse Practitioners, and Nurse Midwives will have to fill in the gaps. Legislation in several states already seeks to extend these professionals' autonomy by allowing them to practice independently of physicians. The leadership roles and education opportunities will increase for nurses, hopefully allowing for increased wages. I do believe, however, since physicians and nurses are the closest providers of patient care, we can influence great change working as a team. In the interest of patient care, neither of these professions can stand alone. With effective collaboration and re-establishing our common purpose, quality of care can be positively impacted. Doctors and nurses can help to keep patient...
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...Comparative Summary Alonzo miller HCS/577 July 6, 2015 Sharon Sanders Comparative Summary The United States health care system have many organizations that are called entity which have an effect on people daily living and survivor in life. I will discuss in this paper the entity that I chose from the list of each health care financial environment and described in the Financial Environments Worksheet. I will address and compare the environment that I selected in week one assignment. I will describe the organizations financial structure. I will explain which unique policy to the financial environment that I selected from week one assignment. I will discuss financial management practices that are prevalent in the financial environment. I will in this paper discuss what are the effective financial management that is more difficult in health care than in other industries. Describe the financial structure. The mission of the Department of Veterans Affairs is a government entity that serves veterans of the United States and their dependents, and beneficiaries with compassion and dignity and veterans principal advocate to ensure they receive social support, benefits, medical care, benefits, and lasting memorials. (va.gov, 2016). Department of veterans' affairs financial structure consists of consolidated financial structure consolidated balance sheets that are base dollars in the millions. The assets are kept on this sheet with treasury fund balance. The financial...
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...The business of drug Abuse abuse Bonnie S Western Governors University Abstract What is the economic cost of substance abuse and addiction? The estimates are shocking in the hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Yes, that’s right…. not hundreds of millions, but hundreds of billions of dollars. Illicit drug use alone accounts for 181 billion dollars per year in health care, productivity loss, crime, incarceration, and drug enforcement. Alcohol addiction accounts for approximately the same amount also. ("Molecules to Managed Care," 2008) So how do we deal with such an enormous problem? We can’t ignore problems of such a monumental financial impact to our country. We spend so much on damage control from the result of addiction and so very little on prevention. How can we turn this around to change these numbers and positively affect our society? Early intervention and treatment are the only way to combat these staggering numbers. In 2010 23 million Americans, age 12 or older, identified as having substance abuse issues and only 2.6 million received treatment at specialty facilities in 2009. Why are so few seeking treatment? Keywords: SBIRT, SAMHSA, abuse, addiction, ED, ONDCP, NIDA, ACA The business of drug Abuse There is an enormous amount of money spent in this country on dealing with the aftermath of substance abuse and addiction. What are we doing to prevent this disease? If we recognize that addiction to drugs and alcohol is a disease then what is our plan...
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...Health Care in India, Ireland, South Korea, and United States Global Health Abstract The World Health Organization (WHO) defines universal health coverage as everyone having access to needed health services without the financial hardship that can follow (WHO, 2013). Health care should be accessible to all citizens, appropriately funded, provided by trained professionals, and affordable to all citizens. Health care changes from country to country in multiple aspects including: cost, availability, and private health care verses socialized health care. The cost of health care and government assisted health programs can take a big toll on the overall spending and reliability of a countries health system. Each country has their own strengths and concerns in regards to their health system. There is not one health system that will work for every country because every country has a different government organization, differences among the population, and other country wide concerns that impact the country as a whole. India is the seventh largest country located in South Asia populating about 1.2 billion people. It is roughly one third the size of the United States and the capital New Delhi still resides the majority of the population, housing about 22 million people (CIA, 2013). India does not have a universal health care system in place, although the government is working on a plan (Luthra, 2012). India has government funded public hospitals and private hospital...
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