HISTORY OF HEALTH INSURNCE I stopped for a moment to imagine an average Americana’s world without a health insurance, what will become of such individual when the need for healthcare beckons? How will such individual offset the outrageous bill of healthcare? Health insurance is used in America to describe any program that helps pay for medical bills through the following: privately purchased and social insurance or a social welfare program usually powered by the government. Simply put, health insurance is any form of insurance that provides protection by offsetting the actual costs of medical services.
Before the onset of federal government’s intervention on health insurance, it can be said that the onus were thrown to lower arms- the federal government left responsibilities to the state governments while state governments left responsibilities to the private bodies. However, America did have some funds which were provided for its members in sickness and death, but there were no funds for public programs during this said time which was between the late 19th and early 20th century. The public usually pay for their health care costs on their own, under what is known as the fee for service business model.
Meanwhile, during the progressive era in the 1930s, while it was designing the Social Security system, President Theodore Roosevelt led administration explored possibilities for creating a national health insurance program, this was embedded in Roosevelt’s belief that no country could be strong when its inhabitants are sick and impoverished. Unfortunately, the project was left aside because the American Medical Association (AMA) vociferously opposed it, along with all forms of health insurance at that time.
In the United States, health insurance started in the 1930’s during the era of great depression as a private initiative. Here, hospitals and physicians device