Voucher reimbursement would be based on age and health of the patient, so younger, healthier individuals would be reimbursed at a lesser amount while older, less healthy individuals would be reimbursed at a higher amount, ensuring that insurance companies were fairly reimbursed for their costs. Writers Emanuel and Fuchs continue, "So, the payment to insurers for covering older, sicker patients will be higher than for younger, healthier Americans, eliminating the incentive to exclude high-risk patients" (Emanuel & Fuchs, 2005, p. 21). This would create a fairer more equitable health plan for all Americans, and it would eliminate the equation of poverty from the mix. Today, most uninsured patients come from the lowest levels of income in America. They cannot afford insurance, and their employers do not provide it. Thus, the current healthcare system is unfairly biased toward those who can afford to pay for insurance or healthcare, and it ignores many of the low-income people who need it most, such as children and the elderly. Eliminating this bias creates a fairer healthcare system that does not ignore a large segment of the American population.
It is interesting to note that many healthcare professionals endorse the idea of universal healthcare. Another writer states, "Last year, in a survey of medical-school faculty and administrators published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 57% said they favored a single-payer universal healthcare system over either fee-for-service or managed care" (Gordon, 2000, p. 16). Many physicians find themselves increasingly bound by managed healthcare regulations, time limits, and stipulations, so they feel less in charge of their own practices and patients. This is one reason so many have banded together to call for universal healthcare, they feel it will increase the quality of care while decreasing costs and insurance company meddling.
In addition, citizens would have a voice in coverage, benefits, and the like because insurance companies would have to answer to a board made up of healthcare professionals, consumers, and others. Writers Battista and McCabe note, "Single payer, universal health care administered by a state public health system would be much more democratic and much less intrusive than our current system. Consumers and providers would have a voice in determining benefits, rates and taxes" (Battista & McCabe, 1999). Thus, the system could save money, cut bureaucracy, and ensure adequate...
3). In the same Hastings Center Report as the above quoted article, another article reiterates, "One widely accepted way of justifying universal access to health care is to argue that access to health care is necessary to ensure health, which is necessary to provide equality of opportunity, but the evidence on the social determinants of hearth undermines this argument" (Sreenivasan, 2007, pg. 21). Though the literature offers sound reasons why a
Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature Chapter Introduction This chapter provides the background and an overview of the debate concerning national health insurance and the issues surrounding the provision of universal health care in the United States. A discussion of the implications of universal health care for private insurance carriers and other stakeholders is followed by a review of the criticisms being directed at current efforts to reform health care in the
Overview The notion of universal health care in the United States is a decidedly polarizing one, which is why this author chose it. Universal health care is a single payer system in which healthcare is subsidized by the government with equal, free access to all. The audience for this document is the array of health care insurance companies. Many people deride such a notion as a harbinger of socialism, which in
Universal Health Care - Literature Review Universal Health Care Universal health care is a hot-button topic for many people, especially since "Obamacare" was passed into law. However, there has been some discussion of a health care bill of some kind for the United States for many years before President Obama took office. The debate is nothing new, but there are two sides to the issue - both of which are very significant
This drug is far more available in the U.S. Others complain about waiting lists for specialists or refusals by their GPs to see much-needed specialists. Specialists in fields of practice such as mental health and dentistry are often scarce, in certain areas of the country. And because of lower tax revenues due to the recession and rising costs due to the aging of the population, the NHS has placed
Some believe that a universal healthcare system would provide fewer incentives for doctors, who would be less likely to perform at their best. Doctors who are not paid based on their quality may be more likely to perform at a lower quality, some hypothesize. This argument is also used to support the fact that having national health insurance may dissuade those who would be good doctors from going into
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