While Obamacare sought to improve so many of the issues plaguing healthcare in America, it also played a part in making the problem worse and more complex. Health insurance premiums rose, making the monthly fees for health insurance an extravagance for so many people. The Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index showed that 11.7% of Americans did not have health insurance as of the second quarter of this year, which is a 0.8% increase from the last quarter of 2016: this means that 2 million Americans appear to have dropped their coverage during this interim (Backman, 2017). This comes as no surprise, since health insurance was becoming more and more expensive: “…premiums rose significantly across the board this year for those who don't qualify for federal subsidies, and many folks just couldn't afford them. Furthermore, a large number of insurers pulled out of the open exchange, leaving consumers with a narrower range of choices for coverage” (Backman, 2017). Given how complex and tense the healthcare playing field has become, and not to mention how riddled with uncertainty it generally is, many people have given up paying expensive premiums of their own accord, deciding to put money aside in case of accidents or medical emergencies.
There needs to be a program in place that can help people who are reasonably healthy which can give them access to either occasional prescription medication, or low-cost on-going prescription medication. This program needs to have an emergency/disaster branch to it,...
This program should largely be an expansion of the “urgent care” phenomenon in America. More and more urgent care centers have sprung up around the nation in a reaction to the sheer costliness of health insurance and the complexities attached to receiving any sort of coverage. Instead of forking over hundreds of dollars a month for an expensive health insurance company, it’s easier to just wait until one actually has an illness or condition that needs treatment, and then go over to the urgent care center—where it’s not crowded and overbooked and there are no super-long wait times. “For patients, urgent-care facilities offer an attractive new option in terms of cost and convenience. They’re designed to handle illness and injuries that are not life threatening, but too pressing to wait for an appointment at a doctor’s office. If you have a sore throat on a Sunday, why go across the borough to the ER to get a strep test when the urgent-care clinic two blocks away can provide the same services?” (Smith, 2017). For many uninsured people, urgent care centers are filling in the gaps in their healthcare. The average cost of a visit at an urgent care center is $150, which is definitively lower than most doctor visits, insurance premiums, and ER fees.
There needs to be government money behind the urgent care system, allowing them to expand their net of coverage a little more, without sacrificing…
