...Federal Government should provide health care for citizens who cannot afford it. Actually the Government should provide health care for all citizens and legal residents, whether they can afford it or not. Healthcare should be a right; everyone should be entitled to proper healthcare and not be subject to being medically treated or not, based on their financial status. Because of the economic downturn, there is a much higher percentage of citizens that cannot afford to pay for healthcare. Here in the United States the healthcare system is quite complicated; it is operated under a managed care system. There are many people today that are hard working honest citizens that cannot even afford to pay for the healthcare insurance even if it is offered at their job. There are quite a few countries in the world that provide healthcare for all citizens including the United Kingdom and Canada. Right here in the United States the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Healthcare reform is set up to provide healthcare for those who cannot afford, why can’t it be done nationwide. The new health Reform or ‘Obama care’ as it is becoming popularly known as, is designed to assist those who cannot afford proper healthcare. In my opinion, every citizen or non citizen of a country should be entitled to proper healthcare. Healthcare should be a right and not judged on how much income you have. There are people in this country that have not been treated properly because they do not have any health coverage...
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...The Land of the Free: Except for Health Care America, dubbed the “land of the free” by the Star Spangled Banner, is known for democracy, freedom, and the American Dream. American citizens have the right to free speech, free press, the right to bear arms, and the right to religious freedom to name a few. The Declaration of Independence states that American citizens have the rights including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” America promises equality and freedom and the protection of their rights as outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. But with all the rights and freedoms that American citizens enjoy, there is one particular area where the United States seems to be lacking. That area is health care. The United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have some form of legal recognition of a right to health care (Yamin 1157). Health care reform in the United States has become a major controversy for politicians, health care professionals, businesses, and citizens. Those in opposition to reform claim that health care is not a human right, therefore the government should not be involved. Supporters of reform believe that health care is most definitely a human right and should be available to everyone in the United States instead of only those who can afford it, and that it is the government’s responsibility to uphold that right. Out of all the industrialized countries in the world, the United States is the only one that doesn’t...
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...|The Case For Single Payer, Universal Health Care For The United States | | | | | | | | | |Nicole Jones | |April 2011 | |HS 544 Health Policy and Economics | |Fowler | | | Table Of Contents Page Section 1: Executive Summary …………………………………………….. 3 Section 2: Introduction …………………………………………….. 4 Section 3: Literature Review ……………………………………………… 5 Section 4: Problem Analysis ……………………………………………… 10 Section 5: Solutions and Implementations ………………………………………… 17 Section 6: Justification ……………………………………………… 18 Section 7: References ……………………………………………… 20 Executive Summary Almost four decades ago, Canada and the United States had very similar health care systems. Today, they are very different. The...
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...Comparison of U.S. and Canadian Health Care Systems Quinn Sullivan California State University East Bay Abstract Health care is an essential service needed by citizens. As a result, the government plays an important role by designing an appropriate health care system for its citizens. In this paper, a comparison between the health care system in the U.S. and Canada has been made. Using various literary sources, the comparison has been done considering the four components of health care services delivery; financing, insurance, delivery, and payment. The findings indicate that the health care system in the U.S. is expensive but more efficient than the single-payer health care system in Canada. The findings have further been analyzed to ascertain its implications on the U.S. citizens, as well as the Canadians. The paper concludes that the health care system in the U.S. does not favor the middle-class earners, and thus recommends an improved system. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 1. Introduction 4 2.1 Health Care Delivery ...5 2.2 The Cost of Health Care and Administrative Overheads 6 2.3 Health Insurance 6 2.4 Funding 7 3. Analysis of Findings 8 4. Conclusion 9 5. Recommendations 10 6. References 11 1. Introduction Health care is among the basic needs of human beings. The need is not discriminative because everyone has an equal chance of...
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...The U.S health care system has gone through three changes within the last fifty years. In 1964 the federal government implemented Medicare and Medicaid followed by the Balance Budget Act in 1997. The third change made by the federal government was the Affordable Care Act. This bill was passed by congress on March 23, 2010 which required all Americans to obtain health insurance by law. The Affordable Care Act was implemented to the United States on January 1, 2014. According to an article the primary purpose of the Affordable Care Act is to “decrease the number of uninsured, expand access to affordable health care, dissolve the concept of charging higher insurance rates for people with preexisting conditions, and decrease overall costs of health care by focusing on quality rather than quantity” (Savel, 2014). In other words the Affordable Care Act’s purpose is to improve the quality and efficiency of the healthcare system. Although the Affordable Care Act is allowing more individuals to gain access to the health care system nevertheless, the health care system is not relocating the resources to provide the access to the thousands of new consumers. Due to the Affordable Care Act more Americans are now eligible for health insurance. For example individuals with pre-existing conditions before were either denied by health insurance or insurance was rather too expensive for them to purchase. According to Kavita K. Patel (2014) “Before the ACA, those with pre-existing medical conditions...
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...The United States is known as one of the greatest, if not the greatest nation in the world. It is known for having the most productive economy, and the most powerful military in the world. So, my question is, why wouldn’t a superpower like the U.S. provide its citizens with a universal healthcare system? Of the 25 healthiest nations in the world it is the only one without it. With an estimated 45 million people in the U.S uninsured, it baffles my mind that the so called “greatest nation” still does not have this system. I personally all persons should have the right to be provided with health coverage, and that our nation should be obligated to provide it to us. During th (Thibodeaux, 2010)ese next few pages I will be discussing what a universal health care system entails, how it is provided, and its advantages and disadvantages....
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...philosopher, believes the purpose of government is to protect the citizens natural rights of “life, liberty, and property.” Health care has been stated as a right in the Universal Declarations of Human Rights. Although, health care should not be provided by the government as it would bring the United States deeper into debt, and would increase the wait time for health care. Having access to affordable health care is a right all people in the United States deserve, however, the government is not responsible to insure this right. Every US citizen should have the right to health care, because it is an internationally acknowledged human right. According to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in article 25, it states, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including [...] medical care.” A standard of living adequate to the health also includes food, clothing, and housing; if every individual has the right to food, clothing, and housing, they should similarly have the right to medical care. The Declaration of Human Rights was signed by the US, therefore affordable...
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...Matter of Health The government provides education, police, and fire protection, why not provide health care for the people? Universal health care coverage is coverage that is extended to an area. Every industrialized country has some form of a national system that provides health care for its people, except for the United States. This could be from a health insurance plan funded by taxation or it could be where all coverage is entirely paid for from taxation. The United States should provide universal health care to all its permanent residents. In many other countries health care is provided by a government facility that covers most of its residents, if not most, all of the residents. Germany has had a national health system since 1883 when the Ministry of Health and Social Services was assembled and still manages to cover the health care of eighty-three percent of its citizens. France has a statutory health system that all residents with incomes are part of and even covers those who make below the poverty level. France also spends only 9.7% of its GDP on health care, which is about half of what the United States spends. Sweden is another country with a great health care system. The health care system covers the entire residential population and is paid for through a tax-based program. In 2006, Massachusetts implemented a health care reform through a government agency recently created called Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector. This new government- funded health plan...
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...Almighty, For being there. 01/10/2014 Riswana Mahamood 703 Cochin,Kerala Introduction Ageing is a natural process, which inevitably occurs in human life cycle. It brings with a host of challenges in the life of the elderly, which are mostly engineered by the changes in their body, mind, thought process and the living patterns. Ageing refers to a decline in the functional capacity of the organs of the human body, which occurs mostly due to physiological transformation, it never imply that everything has been finished. The senior citizens constitute a precious reservoir of such human resource as is gifted with knowledge of various sorts, varied experiences and deep insights. May be they have formally retired, yet an overwhelming majority of them are physically fit and mentally alert. Hence, given an appropriate opportunity, they are in a position to make significant...
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...ABSTRACT The rising costs of health care plans in America is uncontrollable. The number of citizens who are living without health care insurance continues to rise, while at the same time the price of having insurance continues to grow. Instead of the government reforming the health care system, they continue to spend billions of dollars in aid through Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and other government programs - Dollars that could perhaps be better spent on funding programs to ensure every American is provided an affordable health insurance. Over the past year it has become apparent that insurance companies are looking to capitalize by setting premiums higher, as the President talks about implementing a mandate on citizens to have health care. The debate on whether health care should be a profit market or Government controlled should be considered. Through all the turmoil, one thing is certain: America is in need of a Health Care Reform. PREFACE Growing up on poverty, my parents did their best to provide what they could. I was fortunate to be put into State custody at a young age and my brothers and I received full medical treatment under Medicare. A government funded subsidy that allowed us to have free medical attention. As a child, not much thought went into the idea, but as I got older I realized the importance of health insurance. My foster mother had to be rushed to the hospital a few times due to really bad asthma attacks, apparently...
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...Canadian Healthy Policy vs. United States Health Policy AHS 330 Health Care Systems: 7Q April 2, 2014 Healthcare in the United States is extremely different from the rest of the world. Over the years government and political analysts have compared and contrasted the health care systems of the United States to that of Canada’s. Despite being located on the same continent both countries have different ways of delivering health care to its citizens. Canada has a single-payer system that is publicly funded, while the United States has a multi-payer system that relies heavily on privately owned healthcare. This could be due to the differences in how many patients are cared for compared to those in America or it could be just a matter of who developed the better healthcare. However, due to the close proximity of the countries it is possible that the United States can adopt the Canadian healthcare system. According to Health Canada, Canada's publicly funded health care system is best described as an interlocking set of ten provincial and three territorial health insurance plans. Known to Canadians as "Medicare", the system provides access to universal, coverage for hospital and physician services. With this being said it is safe to assume that health care services are provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay. “The Canadian Health Act contains a single national plan that is composed of thirteen provincial and territorial health insurance plans that all share common...
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...Introduction to Health Service and Health Policy American Government Obligation to Health Access No, the American Government does not have an obligation to provide its citizens with health access. Reformers do not emphasize “individual responsibility “ instead the burden of the underinsured is to be shifted to others as their responsibility. When the American Government creates policies, sometimes it becomes the responsibility of the people (working class) by increasing taxes or raising the cost of living in some aspects to reconcile. Our country provides rights for the people but nowhere does it say “free”. It should be everyone responsibility to provide for themselves despite of circumstances. If there is a will, there is a way. I believe the only obligation of the government with health access is to create the environment for moral actions, to ensure that every citizen has the ability to get healthcare. Government Regulating Health Behavior The government’s role in regulating healthy and unhealthy behavior is making a moral decision for the people to be administered efficient health care. Some other approaches should be consumer protection policies, policies on insurance companies, and policies expanding public benefits. Government should not organize the healthcare system to demonstrate unethical behavior. The behavior demonstrated has not been for the people but against them in so many ways. Some of the ways are increasing the cost of healthcare cost as time...
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...President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. There is no denying that Healthcare reform is a necessity at this point. Something absolutely has to change in America’s Healthcare. “It seems clear that if we continue down the path of healthcare delivery we current practice in this country, even if it is practiced a bit more efficiently, we will have failed. We will bankrupt this country, and the health of our citizens will continue to decline” (Riley, 2009). The question remains however, is the Affordable Care Act the answer to our crisis? The intentions of the ACA are honorable. Creators plan to reform healthcare by attacking several areas with issues. Main focus of goals include Universality – The right of every citizen to have healthcare. All citizens should be in a common risk pool. Financing – intent to reform based on spreading the cost of healthcare out equally. The common risk pool comes largely into play here because the young and healthy will subsidize some of the care needed by the sick and elderly. Cost – Reduction – Stabilizing the cost of healthcare and reducing the rate of growth Payment Reform – paying for outcomes and values achieved, rather than the volume of care given. Quality and process improvement - Components that will improve reporting and quality indicators of care. Prevention and Wellness - goal to reduce the cost of healthcare by promoting healthy living, therefore, less need for medical care. (Panning, 2014). In some ways the...
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...The Canadian Health Care system has been regarded as one of the best publicly funded health care programs in the world, to conduct a fair and unbiased comparison of the Canadian and American health care systems one should use similar measuring techniques. Comparing our Health Care system to the United States’ is only going to give us a false sense of satisfaction. This will hinder our progress towards reaching a system that would facilitate the needs of every citizen while taking their opinions and complaints into consideration. A Canadian Health Care system created by the people and for the people. The major differences between the Canadian and the American health care systems are that the Canadian health is a publicly-funded single-pay system which covers costs deemed medically necessary for every citizen/resident regardless of their ability to pay. While the American health care is a multi-payer system based on the patient’s finances. I argue That Canadian Health Care system is better than the American Health Care system. In the Canadian system the citizens will pay far less than they would ever pay if they were being treated for any sickness or receiving any medical services in the United States. It is clear that the Canadian health system is better than the American counterpart as the reported Life expectancy is higher in Canada by more than 2 years, 82.4 years for women and 77.4 years for men when compared to the American life expectancy, 80.1 years for women and 74.8 years...
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...Privatization of health care related services continues to expand rapidly in developing countries including Malaysia. Whereas public hospitals are build to meet social objectives by providing a good healthcare to all, regardless of patients’ ability to pay, private hospitals are usually determined by the search for profits. This event has caused many arguments when the issue of privatizing healthcare in Malaysia arises. Most citizens disagree with this idea because the administration is moving far from giving almost free human healthcare services, citizens are not sure to give a piece of their wages and are confronting high dangers of corruption. Therefore, Malaysia should not privatize health care services. According to (Jayabalan, 2012) the main reason for this problem is the government is moving far from giving almost free human healthcare services. The existing healthcare system is already effective as it provides cheap and affordable healthcare as well as excellent healthcare coverage (Ng., 2012). Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) had rated the current healthcare services ‘excellent’ (Ng., 2012) Bloomberg on the other hand has reported that Malaysia was put 27th on the Most Efficient Healthcare 2014: Countries and InternationalLiving.com's yearly Global Retirement Index reports that Malaysia are one of the nations that give the best and most reasonable social insurance on the planet. Therefore, the current system should be maintained, not changed. Plus...
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