Running Head: Healthcare System

Healthcare System in US
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Healthcare System in US

Introduction
United States is the largest and most diverse society on the globe. It spends almost 2 trillion dollars every year on health care, which is one in every seven dollars in the economy. U.S is one of the very few nations where all its citizens do not have medical coverage. Although it spends heavily on per capita on health care, and it has the most advanced medical technology system in the world, still it is not the healthiest nation on earth. The system performs so poorly that it leaves 50 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered (Garson, 2010).

Discussion
History of Medicare
In 1945, the United States president Harry Truman decided to bring to the attention of the Congress. The message was in an attempt to develop a universal plan that would be applicable to all United States citizens. The Congress contemplated the bill that would establish a healthcare plan. The debate for a comprehensive plan carried on for twenty years. The prolonged wait made president Truman give up on the idea. Even though the president had given up on the healthcare bill, Social Security system and a number of other participants continued the efforts. After two decades of struggle, in 1965, the Medicare and Medicaid plans became legislation after the Congress approved the bill. President Lyndon Johnson’s vision of a “Great Society” and Harry Truman’s initial efforts materialized. It would only be fitting for Harry Truman to be the first person to enlist in Medicare. This Act became applicable to the general public and has been serving since its introduction in 1965. There is currently a debate as to what changes does the Act need to address the changing needs (Shi & Singh, 2009).

Health care professionals involved
Medicare healthcare system in United States has the best healthcare professionals in the world. It has nurses, therapists, physicians and best doctors in their team in the clinical care of almost any discipline from the allocations of medicine, whether main or subsidiary. They have the latest clinical techniques developed and available today. In addition, all the doctors they have are also positioned as the academic professors in the Faculty of in various colleges and universities. There have been many advances in the technology that has helped the healthcare professional to provide the best care to the patients. These advances have greatly helped the quality of care in the service of health, and in the future will reflect large monetary economies (Cutler, 2008).

Eligibility Criteria
Since the Medicare bill was applicable to all citizens, there had to be eligibility criteria through which people would receive medical insurance. The criteria for insurance require people to be of 65 years of age and a resident of the United States for 5 years to qualify for Medicare. Medicare also requires the person’s spouse to pay medical taxes for a minimum of 10 years. Another condition for people under the age of 65 that are disabled should receive Social Security of retirement benefits. Individuals that need kidney transplant or require dialysis for the final level renal disease (Sultz & Young, 2010).
In addition, individuals that do not receive benefits for 2 years would have to wait another 24 months to become eligible for Medicare benefits. In such cases, if the person is suffering from one of the listed diseases, he or she becomes eligible for Medicaid. There are some individuals that qualify for Medicare and Medicaid at the same. This holds true in a few states where individuals earning less than a certain amount. In this case, Medicaid pays the premium for Part B and drugs of the person. In 2008, the number of people depending on the insurance plan was 45 million. Experts believe the number could rise to as many as 78 million by the year 2030 (Jonas et al, 2007).

System Funding and Crisis
About 38 million people--some 33 million of them elderly and five million of them disabled--rely on Medicare, the federal government's health-insurance plan, for their health-care needs. But Medicare now faces a serious funding crisis. The program's outlays--what it spends on health care for its beneficiaries--are on the brink of surpassing its revenues. Unless it is fundamentally restructured, the program will no longer exist when most of today's high-school students reach retirement age in the year 2050. In fact, budget analysts predicted in 1996 that if nothing is done, the program will go bankrupt much sooner: just three years from now, in 2001.
That is when Medicare's primary source of funding, the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, is expected to run out, according to the fund's trustees. In 1997, the fund had a surplus of more than $100 billion. But it is expected to dwindle to nearly zero by the year 2000, to run a $53 billion deficit in 2001 and to run a deficit in excess of $400 billion in 2005 (Kulesher, 2006).
Medicare's finances are in peril for two main reasons. The first is steadily rising health-care costs. In 1996, Medicare spending, at 12.2% of the federal budget, was the third-largest budget item. Only Social Security (the federal government's pension plan for retirees) and defense spending consumed a larger share. Medicare spending totaled $196 billion in 1996, and according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will reach $312 billion in 2002.
The pressures exerted by rising health-care costs will be compounded by the effects of a looming population shift. Medicare is financed by working people who contribute to the program through payroll taxes. Upon reaching age 65, workers stop paying into the system and become eligible to reap its benefits. Medicare faces a crisis because it will soon be obliged to pay out benefits to a vastly larger group of beneficiaries, while depending on a much smaller pool of contributors. That will happen when members of the so-called baby boom generation--those born just after World War II--begin to retire in 2011. An estimated 40 million people will have reached the Medicare-eligibility age of 65 that year. At the same time, the pool of contributors to Medicare will decline by about the same number of payers.

Conclusion
However, the Medicare system is currently going in deficit and is very costly. Over the past few years, the question of what to do about Medicare has divided the two political parties, and debates have often been dominated by partisan bickering. Democrats have generally tried to protect the program's beneficiaries from reductions in benefit levels and from increases in monthly insurance fees, or premiums. Republicans have been more apt to demand fiscally conservative measures, including benefit reductions and increased premiums, as a way to preserve the program over the long term.

References
Garson, A. (2010), “The US Healthcare System 2010. Problems, Principles, and Potential Solutions”, American heart Association, 101. Cutler, D. (2008), “The American healthcare system”, health care magazine.
Kulesher, R. (2006), “Shredding the Social Contract: The Privatization of Medicare”
Hacker, J. (2007), “A proposal for guaranteed, affordable health care for all Americans building on Medicare and employment-based insurance”, EPI briefing paper.
Sultz, H.A & Young, K. M. (2010), “Health Care USA: Understanding its Organization and Delivery, Seventh Edition”, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 7th Edition
Jonas, S. Goldsteen, R. Goldsteen, K. (2007), “An Introduction to the U.S Healthcare System”, Springer Publishing Company, 6th Edition
Shi, L. & Singh, D. A. (2009), “Essentials of the US Health Care System, Second Edition”, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2nd Edition