Introduction: Politicians have been debating healthcare for the last hundred years. Before the 1900s, doctors didn’t have much technology to diagnose and treat the sick, so it was more affordable to patients. Once new medicines were found, doctors started taking advantage of these new treatments, which increased cost. Therefore, as the cost went up, the public needed a way to pay for the treatments; this was the start of health insurance. Health insurance and healthcare came about during the time of the Great Depression. There are currently two main methods of providing healthcare: public and private. Public healthcare provides universal access and is funded through the government. Two forms of public healthcare are Medicare and Medicaid which President Johnson signed into law in 1965. Medicare, or public healthcare, was first enacted by the U.S. government to provide healthcare to the elderly. Medicaid provides insurance to anyone who has a disability or is in poverty. Private insurers are funded by premiums and cover clients while also making a profit. The first private insurer was the Baylor Hospital in the 1930s, which later became Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Insurance. The purpose of this report is to determine whether private healthcare coverage, as it currently exists in the United States, is more or less effective than a single payer system according to three criteria: cost, availability, and quality.
Method:
The Commonwealth Fund supports research on healthcare issues and helps to improve healthcare policies. It is made up of a Board of Directors that all share the common purpose to improve high performance health systems. The Fund is led by a Chairman, James Tallon, and a Vice Chairman, Cristine Russell. These two highly influential people are the leaders of a team of medical doctors that research healthcare improvements. The Urban