Obama and His Healthcare Reforms: Improving the Health Care Facilities in America - Research Paper Example

 Introduction “More than 20 million people in the United States live in areas that have a shortage of physicians to meet their basic health care needs. This lack of access to quality health care for many people, particularly those living in rural and urban underserved communities, is a serious health care problem” (AMSA Foundation) President, Barak Obama has made health care reform the number one priority of his administration because of the serious issues prevailing in American health care system. It is universally accepted that the health care system needs an overhaul. However, how to accomplish reforming the system is the problem. The major problems associated with American health care services is the shortage of quality healthcare professionals, inadequate salary structure of the healthcare professionals, lack of facilities in the health care institutions increasing expenses and population. Moreover, health care institutions and pharmaceutical companies exploit the sick and needy people heavily so that the sick people were afraid of approaching the hospitals. The health insurance services were also not functioning properly and even though the US government spending on this sector is more compared to any other developed countries, it benefits only the private insurance firms rather than the sick people. This paper briefly analyses the proposed healthcare reform plan by Obama on the basis of the questions like How much will it cost and who will pay the cost?, Will the level of care improve or decline? Who should be covered in the health care system? Should we have government run health care system other than Medicare? and also with respect to the views of democrats and the republicans Obama’s healthcare plan Obama’s healthcare reforms are aimed at; Guarantee Choice, Make Health Coverage Affordable, Protect Families’ Financial Health, Invest in Prevention and Wellness, Provide Portability of Coverage, Aim for Universality, Improve Patient Safety and Quality Care, Maintain Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability, Reducing Medicare Overpayments to Private Insurers Through Competitive Payments Reducing Drug Prices Improving Medicare and Medicaid Payment Accuracy and Improving Care after Hospitalizations and Reduce Hospital Readmission Rates. (Office of management and Budget) How much will it cost and who will pay the cost? Obama’s health care reforms aimed at; reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government, protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs, guarantee choice of doctors and health plans, invest in prevention and wellness, improve patient safety and quality of care, assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans, maintain coverage when you change or lose your job, end barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions (Health Care) “According to Kirk's Web site, the proposal would lower health-care costs by fostering "state innovation through insurance market reforms, high-risk pools, community health networks and new association options for small businesses." (Byrne)Obama’s plan is aimed at keeping the general public’s expenditure on healthcare constant and at the same time offering the public better health care services by the effective involvement of the government in the health sector. Obama has realized that the per capita spending on healthcare in America is more compared to some other countries like Canada or England; but even then these spending are not reaching the public like in other countries. Obama’s plan is aimed at more governmental intervention in the healthcare sector in order to save the public from bankruptcy. Obama believes that whatever the extra expenditure needed to fund the healthcare reforms must be allocated from the government funds as preserving the health of the public is one of the basic duties of a democratic country. Will the level of care improve or decline? If implemented properly, Obama’s package will definitely improve the level of healthcare in America. Obama’s package is not only addressing the sick and needy people alone; but it focuses on raising the benefit standards of the healthcare professionals and also the ealthcare organizations. Obama believes that since the healthcare problems in America is a serious one it shoult be attacked form all possible corners in order to get better result. Obama’s plan is useful for all the sick people irrespective of their age or seriousness of their ill. Those who have individual coverage and group coverage are equally treated in the new reform plan. Gender discrimination while taking insurance is also eliminated in the new plan. Earlier insurance companies were charging more from the women of child bearing age because of their concerns about the expenditure during pregnancy and child birth. In other words, young women suffered a lot from the earlier insurance policies and as per the new reforms suggested by Obama, younger women need not pay more for their health insurance coverage. The plan to give more benefits to the healthcare professionals, to improve the facilities and to improve the infrastructure will definitely raise the standards of health care in America as per the new reforms. Moreover, Obama has announced some packages for the prevention of the diseases also which will boost the health sector. Who should be covered in the health care system? All the public who are staying in America, irrespective of their country of origin should be covered in the healthcare system. There is no point in isolating some people because of their country of origin is different. Sickness has no discrimination as we have seen in the recent examples of H1N1 fever. It can affect anyone and can spread rapidly. Those who don’t have insurance coverage may not take proper treatments and hence it is possible that these types of diseases spread to all over the country. So, all the people irrespective of their country of origin, gender, age, class, or culture should be brought under some kind of insurance packages in order to prevent the spreading of deadly diseases. Should we have government run health care system other than Medicare? The questions like who should control the health care system in America, the government or the Medicare. It is a fact that Medicare insurance program is run on behalf of the government and the government is spending heavily to improve the health care system in America. But the problem is that the advantage of the government spending goes to the pockets of the private insurance companies rather than that of the sick and needy people. “National surveys show that the primary reason people are uninsured is the high cost of health insurance coverage” (The National Coalition on Health Care) Though, public or government spending in health insurance sector is more in America (America is supposed to be one of the leading developed country where per capita spending in health sector is more), the effectiveness is less compared to other developed countries. High premiums and complicated procedures in filling the papers, force the general public to refrain from privately run health insurance packages. These private insurance companies are more interested in the formalities rather than providing the benefits to the sick people. Because of globalization, privatization is encouraged in most of the business areas, and the private organizations exploiting this opportunity to maximize their profit. Moreover, the government is trying to get back from the more expensive public utility areas in order to reduce their expenditure. The current economic depression has caused lot of damages to the private insurance organizations because of the destroyed share values of their firms. These damages force them to implement more strict regulations in providing the services to the public. In short, in order to make the health care system more meaningful, the government should take full control of the health services in America and they should simplify the formalities and procedures required to avail the insurance facilities to the citizens. Views of democrats and the republicans “While Democrats say the plan will be budget-neutral, Republicans say the cost savings and tax increases being used to fund new programs would better go toward reducing the fast-growing federal budget deficit” (WEISMAN et al) Republicans contend that Democratic Party's health care plans will bankrupt the country. However, President Obama says that the Administration's plan will save The US economy from bankruptcy. In my opinion Obama is right in his healthcare policies. No democratic government can stay away from protecting the health of their citizens. The health of the citizen is the wealth of the country. Expenditure on this sector will never be a nuisance when we compare the expenditures of unnecessary wars. America or the republicans spend billions of dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan etc in the name of war on terror. Considering that expenditure, the extra expenditure required to implement the healthcare reform plan is nothing. “Obama's aim is to extend health insurance to the 46 million Americans who at present do not have any. The main dividing line in the debate is between liberal Democrats who want the new people to be covered by a federally-funded scheme and Republicans, backed by fiscally-conservative Democrats, who are opposed and want this left to the private sector” (MacAskill) Conclusions Obama’s healthcare reforms are aimed at reducing the public’s expenditure on health sector by increasing more governmental involvement in this sector. Obama’s plan aimed at improving the health care facilities in America, and also to improve the benefits of the healthcare professionals. Republicans are of the view that the government is going to increase the tax in order to find money for the implementation of the healthcare reform package. They believe that the country will become bankrupt if the government go ahead with the current package. On the other hand democrats believe that the government can find out financial resources for health reform by cutting down the government spending on non-productive sectors. Works Cited 1. AMSA Foundation. 2009. “Health Care Delivery: Rural vs. Urban Communities” 5 September 2009. 2. Byrne, Dennis. 2009. “Obama's Health Reform Fudge”. 5 September 2009. 3. “Health Care”. 5 September 2009. 4. MacAskill, Ewen. “Obama to Deliver Make-or-Break Healthcare Speech to Congress”. 5 September 2009. 5. Office of management and Budget. “President Obama'sFiscal 2010 Budget Transforming and Modernizing America’s Health Care System” 5 September 2009. 6. The National Coalition on Health Care. 2009. “Facts on the Cost of Health Insurance and Health Care”. 5 September 2009. 7. WEISMAN, JONATHAN. KING, NEIL. and ADAMY,JANET. 2009. “Wrong Turns: How Obama's Health-Care Push Went Astray”. 5 September 2009. Read More