The critical issue in Health Care Reform, according to some, Davis (2008) notes, is power. When consumers know less about the facts, those who do know possess the greater power. These with more power generally consist of "the hospitals, the insurers, and the healthcare policy makers" (Ibid., ¶ 14). Consumer-driven healthcare aims to switch the power to the consumer and the partnering provider (¶ 14).
Three significant factors relate to healthcare, cost, access, and quality.
Cost relates to the ability to adequately finance healthcare, whether through insurance or self-pay. It also links to the ability to pay copayments and deductibles.
Access does not only denote availability of services in a particular area (facilities, equipment, and personnel), it also includes transportation to services. This may be the individual lacking a vehicle, money to purchase gas or to pay someone to supply transportation.
Quality, the Institute of Medicine explains, encompasses the extent to which health services augment the probability of desired health outcomes, comparable to standard practice.
And When either cost, access or quality is missing, that missing component interrupts healthcare. "In the traditional healthcare model, cost, access, and quality can serve as and barriers the healthcare, forcing consumers to be passive recipients, whereas in the consumer-driven healthcare model, the consumer is an active participant in the process," Davis (2008, ¶ 16) asserts.
And Health Care Problems
Currently, due to their being uninsured, according to the article, "Doctors, patients, and the need for health care reform," (2009) published by The New England Journal of Medicine, more than 46 million people regularly risk their health and financial stability. Approximately 25 million more Americans do not have enough insurance to satisfactorily cover their medical needs. This situation contributes to bankruptcies, caused by high medical costs, to increase. Due to rising costs and new press abusive practices by the health insurance industry, the sickest and most vulnerable Americans are put at risk.
Regardless of their station in life, all Americans should be able to access the care they need, not just the care they can afford, The New England Journal of Medicine stresses. As the growth of health care costs continues to be unsustainable, the healthcare crisis appears grim, partially due to the following reasons that plague the U.S. Healthcare system:
Impending workforce shortages, excessive volume-based purchasing, rising costs, and unpredictable Medicare payments.
Due to the numerous gaps in the way each component (consumers, employers, providers, and health plans) operates, Davis (2008) asserts, the current traditional healthcare system is broken. Recently released findings from the Association of American Medical Colleges indicate that 15 years from now, there will be 159,000 fewer doctors than the U.S. needs, practicing in the country. During 2009, primary care physicians are reported to be particularly in short supply.
The article, "Insuring America's health: Principles and recommendations (2004) published by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, asserts that not having insurance contributes to approximately 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the U.S.
America reportedly leads the world in spending on health care. The U.S., however is one of the wealthy, industrialized nations that does not ensure all its citizens have health coverage. "To help policy-makers, elected officials, and others judge and compare proposals to extend coverage to the nation's 43 million uninsured, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies offers a set of guiding principles and a checklist in…[the] report, Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations" (Insuring America's health…, 2004, ¶ 1). The report culminates a series offering a thorough, comprehensive examination of the affect that the lack of health insurance has on individuals, as well as their families, communities and society as a whole.
The following set of guiding principles is based on evidence reviewed in the Committee's previous five reports, along with new analyses of past and present federal, state, and local efforts to reduce the number of individuals who are not insured. Prominent principles for guiding the Healthcare Reform Bill debate and evaluating various strategies include:
1. Health care coverage should be universal.
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