...Organizational Responsibility and Current Health Care Issues Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Health Law and Ethics Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act History “After the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010, numerous lawsuits challenging various provisions of the momentous health care reform law were filed in the federal courts. Many of those cases were dismissed, but some federal appellate courts issued decisions on the merits of the law. In November 2011, the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider several issues related to the constitutionality of the ACA arising out of two cases in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals” (The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation). Headline news featured the highly controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also referred to as Obamacare, during the week of 25-June-2012. In response to health care crises in the United States, PPACA advanced to the forefront. “[W]e must also address the crushing cost of health care. This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, one million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And...
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...2016 Qiana Amos Health Law, Regulation, and Policy Paper Today’s health care industry is more than just providing medical services to individuals in need; it encompasses various laws, regulations, and policies that direct how care should be provided and what the ramifications of non-compliance will have on the health care provider and the organizations where services are rendered. There are various kinds of laws, regulations, and policies that affect the health care industry. Some may believe that laws, regulations, and policies all have the same requirements, benefits, and implications, but there are differences between the three and the impact they have on health care. As the ability of the health care industry continues to expand, the need for additional laws, regulations, and policies will be necessary to ensure the quality and equitable delivery of medical services continues to improve alongside the medical services. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 One law that governs the manner in which health care services are rendered is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This law states “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance (United States Department of Labor, n.d.). For health care organizations and providers, this act prohibits them from receiving federal...
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...and drawing conclusions while others generate their own data through experimentation or mathematical theory. On a masters level, research is often based on statistical data used to validate a point the author is trying to express. One such example is the graph on page 31 of Harrington’s “Health Policy: Crisis and Reform in the U.S. Health Care Delivery System,” here the author provides an excerpt wherein the writer is attempting to validate their view that national health care will never work in the U.S. (Harrington & Estes, 2008, p. 31). Health care research in the workplace setting is applicable as it provides a means to validate and define standards of care, legal requirements and health policy. Regulation of research is also a critical foundation that must be upheld to prevent abuse and ensure valid data. Shaw describes how research has increasingly become more regulated and formalized as governments have moved to protect the public and ensure more accurate data is produced (Shaw, n.d., 2005, p. 1). Although not currently working in a health care setting, I am a nursing student and will be working in a hospital environment. Health care research will have many applications in the hospital setting. As it relates...
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...The Affordable Care Act and Its Affect on North Carolina's Uninsured Population Wanda Mullins Walden University Nursing 6050, Section20: Policy and Advocacy for Improving Population Health April 5th, 2015 The Affordable Care Act and Its Affect on North Carolina's Uninsured Population The Affordable Care Act is an act that was created in 2010 by President Obama to ensure all Americans have health insurance coverage. This law became a federal mandate in 2014. This legislation has multiple goals: requires all United States citizens to have health insurance, insures all persons at the national poverty margin with Medicaid coverage, offers adequate health coverage to employees through the employer, and mandates private insurance companies reduce the amount of exclusions for pre-existing conditions to maintain federal compliance. Prior to the enactment of the ACA, there were approximately more than thirty million Americans without health insurance (Sparer, 2011). This legislation allows the federal government to have more control over private health insurance sectors and strives to ensure the health care of all Americans at the national level . The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on North Carolina’s Uninsured Population As of 2011, if you were a North Carolina resident, poor, homeless, unemployed and without child, you were eligible for Medicaid (Milestead, 2013 ). The ACA was implemented to help these citizens. As of June 2012, the Supreme Court ruled the...
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...viewing FDA drug review as a politically shaped exercise in information processing. I argue that the incentives facing regulators induce limits on the degree to which drug review can be accelerated, that the same incentives could render privatization initiatives problematic, and that political pressures could play a useful role in identifying priority drugs. Patients, more than pharmaceutical firms, shape the political costs to the FDA of delaying drug approval. Consider two hypothetical consumers, one a pharmaceutical consumer (“patient”) who wishes to try a new drug for some ailment, the other a vitamin consumer who wishes to take zinc supplements to ward off a cold or flu. There are few institutional restrictions upon the consumption decisions of the vitamin consumer, at least in the United States. She is free to purchase vitamin products over the counter, and the vitamin manufacturer is free to sell them without prior authorization or licensing. Not so with pharmaceuticals. The marketplace for pharmaceuticals is one of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S. economy.1 To use any new pharmaceutical product, the patient must secure the approval of two agents: a licensed physician and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).2 No discussion of the past, present, or future of the pharmaceutical industry can ignore the critical role played by the FDA in its evolution. The agency’s drug review decisions are essentially final (contesting them is extremely difficult and...
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...United States Main article: Health care reform in the United States Health care reform in the United States Healthcare reform in the US Debate over reform History Latest enacted legislation Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Senate bill - H.R. 3590) Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872) preceding legislation Social Security Amendments of 1965 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (1986) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996) Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (2003) Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (2005) [show] More information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This box: view· talk· edit See also: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Maximum Out-of-Pocket Premium as Percentage of Family Income (Source: CRS) In the United States, the debate regarding healthcare reform includes questions of a right to health care, access, fairness, sustainability, quality and amounts spent by government. The mixed public-private health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, with health care costing more per person than in any other nation, and a greater portion of gross domestic product (GDP) is spent on it than in any other United Nations member state except...
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...Bisht et al. Globalization and Health 2012, 8:32 http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/8/1/32 REVIEW Open Access Understanding India, globalisation and health care systems: a mapping of research in the social sciences Ramila Bisht1*, Emma Pitchforth2 and Susan F Murray3 Abstract National and transnational health care systems are rapidly evolving with current processes of globalisation. What is the contribution of the social sciences to an understanding of this field? A structured scoping exercise was conducted to identify relevant literature using the lens of India – a ‘rising power’ with a rapidly expanding healthcare economy. A five step search and analysis method was employed in order to capture as wide a range of material as possible. Documents published in English that met criteria for a social science contribution were included for review. Via electronic bibliographic databases, websites and hand searches conducted in India, 113 relevant articles, books and reports were identified. These were classified according to topic area, publication date, disciplinary perspective, genre, and theoretical and methodological approaches. Topic areas were identified initially through an inductive approach, then rationalised into seven broad themes. Transnational consumption of health services; the transnational healthcare workforce; the production, consumption and trade in specific health-related commodities, and transnational diffusion of ideas and knowledge...
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...few deplorable conditions of health, which they take the one who endures them to meet in a situation in which there turns out to be imprisoned in an intensive care unit, of which it is not known if it will go out, where its existence is in the tightrope, where it can exist an irreversible exit, where the existence will depend in the future of extraordinary means, connected to machines like the artificial respirator, it is necessary to ask if the life is looking after or prolonging the agony that can take us to the death. Below I will discuss the definition of Euthanasia, some aspects to take for a possible approval, and finally i will discuss some of the points in favor and against euthanasia. For all practical purposes i will take as a definition of euthanasia the following: a patient's right to decide on the form and the time of his death., this within a short definition, but you are looking for the sole purpose the rid a person of their intense suffering, a merciless agony they endure as a result of a serious illness and incurable (for example, some types of cancer, or AIDS). The above mentioned illness or the condition must have been diagnosed sufficiently, so that its irreversibility characteristic, it is such, that determines the death as something inevitable. Within the same definition, the concept of patient, such as the human being who suffers from something, it may be a physical suffering. Without reference to the moral suffering or psychological exclusively, although...
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...Medicaid Name School Abstract On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, allowing all Americans access to affordable health care. Despite the urgent need to provide health care to all Americans some Governors and elected Congressmen continue to debate over the necessity to expand Medicaid and the ACA. The Supreme Court on June 28, 2012 ruled in support of the ACA by upholding the individual mandate which require Americans to have health care insurance. Americans without health care insurance, because of this new health care policy will be able to either purchase insurance through the exchange market or through the expansion of Medicaid. Some states are against the expansion of Medicaid even though the government will fund 100% of the program for the first 3 years. The states that decide to opt out of the Medicaid expansion will heap some negative impact on several stakeholders. The ultimate goal of the ACA and the expansion of Medicaid was to provide quality health to the many uninsured. Expansion of Medicaid The implementation of an important component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the expansion of Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid ensures health care coverage for children, poor people, disabled people and some elderly citizens. Unfortunately, 20 states have decided to opt out of this policy leaving access to health care unavailable to millions of needy people. It remains unclear why so many governors and congressmen...
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...ethical decisions “in the best interest of the patient.” While all medical professionals would agree that this is the goal, not all would agree on exactly what IS the best interest of the patient in a given situation. Healthcare workers—and specifically physicians—work hard to save lives. Many times, death is seen as a medical failure. Health professionals go to great lengths to preserve life with the assumption that saving the life—at all costs—is in the best interest of all patients. In the past, if that left the patient paralyzed or in a vegetative coma, it was still success - they were alive. Today, this assumption is being reconsidered as patients themselves demand to decide for themselves what is in their own best interest. Of particular interest is Oregon law which states, "an adult who is capable and has been determined by the attending doctor to be suffering from a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed his or her wish to die, may make a written request for medication for the purpose of ending his or her life in a humane and dignified manner." In short, the patient can decide when it is time to go, and request the necessary medication to bring about his or her own death. Oregon is the only state with such legislation in place, and the controversy surrounding this law is much what you would expect. This will be an interesting week in our course indeed! Reading: Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Discussions: * Patient confidentiality (graded) * Unethical...
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...Abortion Ethical issues continue to weigh heavily in the way healthcare is delivered in the United States. Diversity makes the most sensitive issues settle in a grey area, rather than simply black or white. Many believe that abortion is ethically justified, when others believe it is morally wrong. The ethical differences in opinions will be explored in the following paragraphs, analyzing the issue from different perspectives. Yet the act of abortion appears to break the vows of non-maleficence that health professionals must remain committed to uphold. According to John Stuart Mill, utilitarianism is a moral theory of ethics in which “an act’s of rightness or wrongness resides either in the nature of the act itself or in the results that the act brings about” (Mill, 2001). In today’s modern society, the utilitarian theory alone accounts for society’s understanding of virtue. The definition of utilitarianism according to Baillie, H.W., McGeehan, J., Garrett, T.M., and Garrett, R.M.(2013 p.4), in Health Ethics states: “Utilitarianism is social consequentialism, that holds that one should act so as to do the greatest good for the greatest number.” Based on the insight of these authors, refraining from abortion contributes to the greater good of not only the childbearing woman, but also to the greater good of society. Many base their argument of abortion on physiological, physical, even socio-economic reasons, but the act unknowingly causes more damage to the woman than one...
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...Legislation On The Elderly In The United States Final Paper The Older American Act of 1965 was signed into law on July 14, 1965. This act established the Administration on Aging within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and called for the creation of State Units on Aging. This act was considered one of the most important contributions on aging legislation enacted by congress. This report is a review of legislation regarding Older American Act. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction on the history of Legislation on the Elderly ……………………………………2 Background Early Acts Enacted to meet the needs of the Elderly……………………………2 Early Acts Enacted leading up to OAA of 1965 …………………………………………..3 Review of Older American Act…….. ………………………………………………………4 Older American Title Review…………..…………………………………………………….5 Amendments………………………………………………………………………………….9 Strength and Weakness of Older American Act……………………………………………..14 Recommendation…………………………………………………………………………….15 Conclusion … ………………………………………………………………………………16 References……………………………………………………………………………………17 Introduction The new deal program of the 1930’s was enacted by congress to address economic issues during the Great Depression. The Social Security Act of 1935 was a response to criticism for the lack of aid to retired workers age 65 and older and who no longer worked (justfacts.com). This law created "a system of Federal old-age benefits" (justfacts.com). The new act provided pensions...
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...(LGBT) individuals and families in the United States. It discusses the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), federal definitions of family and household, and stereotypes about LGBT individuals. It argues that poor LGBT individuals and families lack full citizen rights and access to needed social services as a result of these explicit and implicit biases. Key words: Welfare reform; family policy; civil rights; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT); heterosexism Welfare reform is fundamentally about family policy—about promoting and privileging particular kinds of families, and about penalizing and stigmatizing others. (Cahill and Jones 2002: 1). Two pieces of legislation were passed in 1996 that set an important tone for family policy in the United States: The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), an act that expanded welfare-to-work programs throughout the country, restricted people’s access to public assistance, and crystallized the broader restructuring of public-private boundaries; and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman. At first glance, the two initiatives appear unrelated and inconsequential, although the reality is quite different. Combined, they constitute a national policy context within which legal and cultural Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, December, 2004, Volume XXXI, Number...
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...“Inappropriate genetic testing can threaten individual autonomy, privacy, and confidentiality and lead to various types of genetic stigmatization and discrimination without any commensurate benefit for the individual tested,” (Brandt; Rauf, 2004). When Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) tested their employees without the employees knowing about it, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) stepped in and cited that BNSF violated the employee’s equal rights through discrimination and the employee’s rights of privacy. These actions “raise serious concerns that such testing could pose a significant threat to workers' privacy, autonomy, and dignity. Thus, defining the ethically, legally, and socially appropriate and inappropriate uses of genetic testing in the workplace,” (DEHS, 2001) presents a major breach in a workers legal right to privacy. One hundred and twenty-five BNSF employees filed on-the-job injury claims citing carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) for “years of repetitive activity such as wielding a wrench or operating a jackhammer,” (Lehrer, 2001; UNK, 2001). While investigating these claims, BNSF medical doctor required further testing of 20 employees (UNK, 2001). The medical company pulled blood for genetic testing without telling the BNSF employees what kind of test that they were performing, (Mahanna, 2001; Schafer, 2001; BNSF, 2002; Lehrer, 2001; Lewin, 2002). One employee refused to submit to the tests and BNSF threatened to terminate his job (Lewin;...
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...insurance cover from Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield would have to seek alternatives which would more or less expose them to greater health risks. (Robinson, 2003) The only subscribers who wouldn’t be affected by Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield conversion were the 850 policy holders who had permanent disability. This marked the start of an extensive legal, community and political tussle pitting the various stakeholders who had different kinds of interests in Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Experts argued that this conversion plan was a reflection of the fast-rising competition in provision of health care not only in the State of New York but also throughout the United States of America. Other analysts suggested that Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s conversion from a non-profit to for-profit company would only bring financial benefits but the organization would lose its commitment to social obligations. Before making a formal...
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