Verified Document

Cost Containment Term Paper

Financing Health Care in the 21st Century Cost Containment: the United States government

Unlike virtually every other industrialized country in the world, the United States provides medical care to its citizens through the private workplace, primarily financed through private insurance. Expenditures on such public programs as Medicare and Medicaid have increased the government's portion of the nation's healthcare burden since World War II. Still, the majority of health care funding still comes from the private sector. This has left millions uninsured whom are too 'wealthy' or young to qualify for public assistance, but do not work at places of employment where they receive benefits. It has also left many Americans underinsured for their healthcare needs. (News batch, 2003)

Although the United States spends far more on health care in actual dollars and as a percentage of the GDP than any other country of the world, the U.S. ranks low among industrialized countries in overall life expectancy and infant mortality. Recently, President Bush proposed a tax credit of $2,000 for the purchase of health insurance for the millions of uninsured Americans. But this would not address another serious problem of uninsured and underinsured Americans, namely that employees who have medical problems cannot get health insurance at all. Not only are they unable to obtain insurance, their condition often prevents them from obtaining employment from employers who offer medical insurance because they are bad risks. (News batch,...

Neither, however, addresses the problem the workplace insurance system together with Medicare and Medicaid tend to over insure Americans leading to unnecessary spending and consumption of medical services. (News batch, 2003)
Cost Containment by the Commercial Insurance Industry

Managed care has attempted to address such over consumption. The most common solution the health care industry has resorted to has been managed care. Managed care networks and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Though such companies have been praised for their efforts in providing affordable health coverage to a wider range of consumers than government programs of the past, HMOs, to cut costs, have been criticized for cutting costs by limiting treatment options and patient choice. Doctors and patients increasingly have asked Congress to regulate the managed care industry by giving patients new rights, the foremost of which is the ability to sue their health plans, when they refuse to provide necessary treatment. Such proposals, however, have faltered in recent years, as lawmakers battled over how to protect patients without further driving up already expensive health care costs. (Open Secrets, 2003)

The difficulty in obtaining referrals for specialists, and limited choice for physicians they feel understand their special needs and are located close to them are…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

News batch. (2003). "Health Care."

Retrieved on July 24, 2003 at http://www.newsbatch.com/healthcare.htm

Open Secrets. (2003). "Managed Care."

Retrieved on July 24, 2003 http://www.opensecrets.org/news/mcare/index.htm
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Reducing Health Care Costs
Words: 833 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Technology and Cost Containment: The ongoing increase in the costs of health care has become one of the major impediments towards increasing the accessibility and affordability of care services and enhancing patient outcomes. Policymakers and various stakeholders in the health care industry have taken various measures to help lessen the costs of these services. One of the major initiatives undertaken by these stakeholders is the adoption of technology to address health care

Allocation of Costs Using ABC
Words: 637 Length: 2 Document Type: Data Analysis Chapter

The notes in the around the Activity box are actions needing fixed at the present time such as detecting allocation and costs and most importantly the priorities of the hospital's maintenance. The diagram then has a box drawn below labeled objects in both methods, yet these objects are defined to ABC by tracing activity drivers because it represents products/services and customers while the current method looks at only products and

Budgeting and Cost Control in Healthcare
Words: 3341 Length: 13 Document Type: Term Paper

Budgeting and Cost Control in Healthcare One of the most critical issues facing healthcare facilities and organizations is the rapidly increasing cost of providing services. Cost control and budgetary issues are the first consideration for many healthcare facilities. According to statistics, the "single most important thing on the minds of healthcare decision makers is cost management and containment." (Lawson, 2004). In fact, more than 95% of respondents to a survey concluded

Reducing Health Care Costs Full-Scale
Words: 3014 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

Executives of major companies, like Coca-Cola Enterprises in Atlanta, believed that B-200 was especially helpful in rehabilitation and prevention of re-injury, as employees usually resumed work when their backs stopped hurting, thinking the injury was already treated. They, however, lost some functional abilities and remained vulnerable to the same injury and hurt. An experimental injury-prevention and rehabilitation project conducted at the Coca-Cola Bottling Company showed that it reduced the

Reducing Operational Costs Focus on Labor Expenses Burn Care Unit
Words: 3944 Length: 14 Document Type: Essay

Burn-Care Unit: Reducing Operational Costs- Focus on Labor Expenses 1.0. Executive Summary To remain relevant in the long-term, the Burn-Care Unit ought to adopt either of these two strategies, or combine both in a hybrid mix: reduce costs or boost the current level of revenues while keeping the current cost levels constant. The most viable strategy for an organization of this nature would be to rein in costs via the adoption of

Influences That Have Affected the U.S. Healthcare Costs
Words: 726 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

U.S. HEALTHCARE Influences towards the U.S. healthcare costs Influence on U. S Healthcare Influences on U.S. Healthcare costs Throughout the years, the United States level of healthcare has been adversely affected by various emerging trends concerning Medicare. Some of these factors are the increasing health insurance industry, advancement in technologies used in medicine, demography changes and the improvement of customer support for healthcare. This has implicated towards the expenditures that continue to pile

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now