...Some of the actions that took place after repeated scandals included “the Clinton administration shrank the headquarters bureaucracy, modernized management practices, established a department-wide electronic record-keeping system and increased emphasis on primary and outpatient care, which tends to be cheaper and more efficient than hospitalization” (Price, 2014). The electric record keeping system enabled more effective and safer treatment of individual patients no matter which facility they visited. "In addition, the system enabled researchers to study which treatments work best and to discover patterns in veterans' illnesses" (Price, 2014). There was some backlash for the secretary not firing workers quickly enough. Some people felt like they were giving executives opportunity to retire, quit, or even find new jobs without consequence. The VA should go back and validate the data presented in the text. If there is nothing to hide then there should be no issues with having to do so. Any data provided should be validated in the first place so that falsification doesn’t occur. As the newly appointed Secretary, my first priority would be to take control of the situation by acknowledging the issues, addressing it, and assuming responsibility for the organization’s actions. Then I would bring awareness to how the VA is solving the issue. Next, I would investigate the situation to make sure the accusations do not arise again. One final way I would work to reestablish trust is...
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...compares to socialized medicine in England and the UK. The concerns of the people regarding socialism are important as our country is founded on capitalist principals, and to change those principals requires a complete shift in our thinking. A close look at the systems in question reveals important aspects for consideration; indeed it is important to be aware of the potential future of the ACA. While the English National Healthcare System and the Affordable Care Act have similarities, funding and administrative differences mean that while the ACA could become socialized, it does not currently fit that label. The primary concern of the American people concerning the ACA is, understandably, how this system will fit into the capitalist system that we are so very proud of and whether it will be the start of our nation moving toward complete socialism. Merriam-Webster defines socialism as “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods”. In other words, the state controls business and commerce directly rather than through governmental regulations. Social services such as Medicare are a form of socialism in that they are administered directly by the government in order to prevent business concerns from interfering with their stated social goal. Unfortunately, in a modern democracy, business concerns have a great deal more impact. Socialized medicine could...
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...with her parents and still speaks Farsi, which is her mother tongue. Tina has continued to celebrate and practice her native festivities along with cooking Persian food. Tina states she has a deep love for her country and the very rich culture, which is over 3000 years old, “ I can not imagine being born in any other country”. Tina states that the health practices in Iran are not very much different than America; “we have big hospitals but also small clinics, it is easy to get an appointment and the doctors are very intelligent if not more so than America”. Second family was Adeel from India. India has been known to practice medicine for a very long time and mostly by herbs and spices until the western medicine took over. Adeel reports that he has been in America for 8 years and is now in medical school, which has helped him understand the western medicine in a different way he knew. “We have very modern hospitals, however we also have very poorly shaped ones as well, the contrast in health care system is very broad, depending on where in India you are”. Adeel states he has continued to practice his own belief in Hinduism, stating that “this is what I grew up to believe and maybe it is strange to...
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...Carpenter & Axeen, 2008, p. 1). The brief also states that everyone’s cost of care is affected by the uninsured, so therefore to address the cost problem, the uninsured will have to be covered (Carpenter & Axeen, 2008, p. 1). H.R. 676, drafted by Rep. John Conyers, proposes national health insurance (NHI) as a solution which raises many concerns and questions ("Text of H.R. 676 | John Conyers for Congress", n.d., p. 1). Is national health insurance another way of saying ‘socialized medicine’? According to Uew Reinhardt, a respected economist,” socialized medicine refers to health system in which the government owns and operates both the financing of health care and its delivery” (Reinhardt, 2009, p. 1). In contrast, national health insurance is a system in which “…the government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector” (Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), 2012, p.1). NHI, as structured in H.R. 676, does not technically qualify as ‘socialized medicine’, but does recommend a greater degree of government involvement than most Americans are probably comfortable with. Similar to this, there is concern that the government will be running healthcare and making all the decisions. Under NHI, providers must adhere to strict guidelines regarding patient care and cost...
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...HMO vs. NHS HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) and NHS (National Healthcare Service) have been a controversial topic for many years. I watched a movie entitled, “Sicko.” It is a documentary that was written and directed by Michael Moore. The Documentary investigates the American health system and compares it to the National Healthcare Service in many other parts of the world. One of the countries that have socialized medical care sits directly above the United States. It is Canada. The horror stories I heard about the HMO has made me think twice about our health care system. Can we honestly say that we are doing everything we can to ensure all Americans (from the bottom of the totem pole to the very top) get the quality medical treatment they deserve? This movie has inspired me to compare the two and venture into the world of politics; a topic many individuals would astray from. All my information and resources are congregated from this very movie. HMO Approximately 250 million Americans have Medical Insurance. There are about 50 million Americans who do not have the luxury of being medically insured. 18,000 Americans will die of no insurance this very year. These are numbers that are hard to fathomed; even harder to grasp as only a statistic. These are not just numbers; they are actual Americans who have been wronged by our very own health care system, and died as a result. Let’s start from the beginning. How did the HMO start in the United States? Who were the “brains”...
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...Susan and the System 1. I think that Susan’s health insurance wasn’t the best. She didn’t cover most of the care. When she started to use new medication, she didn’t even contact them, because she knew that it will be worthless, they wouldn’t cover. However, I think that she should try to contact them and check the insurance on what it is good. Because she had limited insurance she was covering medical bills out of pocket and soon become bankrupt. 2. Medicaid didn’t give Susan all of the coverage she needed, almost nothing, especially in her health condition, when the treatment was expensive. They said that they do not cover new promising treatment. They only cover for established or proven treatment. Also, when she wasn’t able to cover out of the packet she find out about the doctor who takes the Medicaid on the other side of the town. Maybe she should go over there since the beginning, however, nobody told her. 3. When the insurance didn’t want to cover her bills, she paid out of pocket. When she runs out from savings she contacts the Medicaid but they designed for the proof. She had only one option, go to the doctor who was taking a Medicaid, but the only problem was that he was located on the other side of the town, in dangers area. She went anyway. Doctor understood her and she was pleased with that. He helped her get better. Susan stands up on her feet in the meaning that she improved her health, and she was able to find a job. However, she couldn’t work full time...
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...with the topic of healthcare systems across the world. In the film, five capitalist democratic countries are chosen for analysis. The rest of this essay will briefly describe these, scrutinize their pros and cons and identify the best among the lot. The essay finally attempts to find ‘the best’ system’s suitability to the United States economy and the possible consequences in the event of being applied. In terms of ‘cost to patient’, the United Kingdom’s healthcare system is the undisputed leader in the world. The government acts in twin roles of 1.healthcare provider and 2.patient insurer. The government gathers funds for healthcare costs beforehand through an ingenuous method of taxation. Of course, as could be expected with a “socialized medicine” model, there are the usual bureaucratic hassles. But apart from that, the UK healthcare system boasts an enviable record of health management and impressive patient outcomes. The National Health Service (NHS) is the central government agency that takes care of all aspects of catering to citizens’ health. The film then goes on to show the workings of the healthcare system of Japan. Here, the system is slightly different, in that, it is a “social insurance” system, wherein the costs are distributed between the employers, non-profit community organizations and citizens. While insurance companies and hospitals in Japan are predominantly in the private sector, they are very well regulated. In this system, monthly premiums cost only $280...
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...|The Case For Single Payer, Universal Health Care For The United States | | | | | | | | | |Nicole Jones | |April 2011 | |HS 544 Health Policy and Economics | |Fowler | | | Table Of Contents Page Section 1: Executive Summary …………………………………………….. 3 Section 2: Introduction …………………………………………….. 4 Section 3: Literature Review ……………………………………………… 5 Section 4: Problem Analysis ……………………………………………… 10 Section 5: Solutions and Implementations ………………………………………… 17 Section 6: Justification ……………………………………………… 18 Section 7: References ……………………………………………… 20 Executive Summary Almost four decades ago, Canada and the United States had very similar health care systems. Today, they are very different. The...
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...Abstract Health policy debates are replete with discussions of federalism, most often when advocates of reform put their hopes in states. But health policy literature is remarkably silent on the question of allocation of authority, rarely asking which levels of government ought to lead. We draw on the larger literatures about federalism, found mostly in political science and law, to develop a set of criteria for allocating health policy authority between states and the federal government. They are social justice, procedural democracy, compatibility with value pluralism, institutional capability, and economic sustainability. Of them, only procedural democracy and compatibility with value pluralism point to state leadership. In examining these criteria, we conclude that American policy debates often get federalism backward, putting the burden of health care coverage policy on states that cannot enact or sustain it, while increasing the federal role in issues where the arguments for state leadership are compelling. We suggest that the federal government should lead present and future financing of health care coverage, since it would require major changes in American intergovernmental relations to make innovative state health care financing sustainable outside a strong federal framework. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by President Barack Obama. The ambitious (and controversial) legislation focuses on reforming the...
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...Ruth paredes 9/25/15 English composition What do you think about universal health insurance? Universal health insurance will inevitably lead to bloated, unsustainable expenses. This will be followed by rigorous attempts at cost cutting tailored to progressive values. The first six inevitable consequences deal with cutting costs by suppressing or destroying human life. We will have increased birth control and slower population growth. Why an inevitability? Because in itself birth control is a strong progressive value and because preventing birth is the cheapest way to curtail the cost of pregnancy and child care under universal health care. economic consequences will rise uncontrollably the price of living will be much extremely high and the taxes will be even higher because the money to pay for the universal health insurance has to come from some when and that will be from our food, gas, and real estate. Much worse, an eventual resumption of involuntary sterilization is a real possibility. In the 20th century, the same people who pushed birth control successfully promoted involuntary sterilization. Abortion rates will rise. Again this is inevitable because abortion is already a progressive program and because next to birth control abortion is the most efficient way of eliminating the costs of pregnancy, delivery, and infant and child health care. Patients will be pushed out of hospitals into homecare, hospice care, and custodial nursing homes. This will be done...
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...March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. There is no denying that Healthcare reform is a necessity at this point. Something absolutely has to change in America’s Healthcare. “It seems clear that if we continue down the path of healthcare delivery we current practice in this country, even if it is practiced a bit more efficiently, we will have failed. We will bankrupt this country, and the health of our citizens will continue to decline” (Riley, 2009). The question remains however, is the Affordable Care Act the answer to our crisis? The intentions of the ACA are honorable. Creators plan to reform healthcare by attacking several areas with issues. Main focus of goals include Universality – The right of every citizen to have healthcare. All citizens should be in a common risk pool. Financing – intent to reform based on spreading the cost of healthcare out equally. The common risk pool comes largely into play here because the young and healthy will subsidize some of the care needed by the sick and elderly. Cost – Reduction – Stabilizing the cost of healthcare and reducing the rate of growth Payment Reform – paying for outcomes and values achieved, rather than the volume of care given. Quality and process improvement - Components that will improve reporting and quality indicators of care. Prevention and Wellness - goal to reduce the cost of healthcare by promoting healthy living, therefore, less need for medical care. (Panning, 2014). ...
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...History of Health Care Reform Transcribed from a talk given by Karen S. Palmer MPH, MS in San Francisco at the spring, 1999 PNHP meeting) Late 1800’s to Medicare The campaign for some form of universal government-funded health care has stretched for nearly a century in the US On several occasions, advocates believed they were on the verge of success; yet each time they faced defeat. The evolution of these efforts and the reasons for their failure make for an intriguing lesson in American history, ideology, and character. Other developed countries have had some form of social insurance (that later evolved into national insurance) for nearly as long as the US has been trying to get it. Some European countries started with compulsory sickness insurance, one of the first systems, for workers beginning in Germany in 1883; other countries including Austria, Hungary, Norway, Britain, Russia, and the Netherlands followed all the way through 1912. Other European countries, including Sweden in 1891, Denmark in 1892, France in 1910, and Switzerland in 1912, subsidized the mutual benefit societies that workers formed among themselves. So for a very long time, other countries have had some form of universal health care or at least the beginnings of it. The primary reason for the emergence of these programs in Europe was income stabilization and protection against the wage loss of sickness rather than payment for medical expenses, which came later. Programs were not universal to start...
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...National Health Care System “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Martin Luther King, Jr. A national health care system is a program operated by the government, designed to provide health care for people in need of medical assistance. All industrial nations except the United States have a national health care system that covers everyone. Generally, in the U.S. health care systems are privately funded insurance companies. The U.S. has three forms of governmental health care; Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for lower income families, and the Children‘s Health Insurance Program. The problem with these health care systems is that many people fall short of qualifying. Is the U.S. in dire need of a national health care system or should we always rely on the familiar and dependable; as in private health care systems? In the U.S. billions of dollars are spent each year on health care; “approximately 232 million out of a total of 274 million people now have health insurance” (Blue Cross Blue Shield 2001); leaving 42 million people uninsured. Insurance can be expensive for people to attain on their own, this explains why the majority are covered mainly through private health care provided by their employers. Not all employers provide insurance, such as, small business who can‘t afford to provide coverage for their employees. People who have insurance frequently waste money on health care that exceeds their needs; while...
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...Healthcare Models: Socialized Medicine, Private Insurance, HMOs, Obamacare Pros and Cons to various healthcare models in terms of: quality of care provided, life-expectancy, accessibility to care, preventative medicine Focus: What type of health care model works best for the United States? Claim #1: The United States should look at overall health of various nations and try to copy systems used in countries with the highest overall healthcare ratings (I hope to prove this claim wrong) Claim #2: The U.S. President should not have very much say in the system put in place; rather, medical experts with a solid knowledge of public health and economics should be making these decisions. Claim #3: The best system for the United States would take our entire culture into perspective. The highly litigious environment that has been created by successful and powerful medical malpractice law firms has caused the cost of basic healthcare to go up, propagating an environment where the doctor must watch his or her back, before using logic in the distribution and usage of medical resources. Perhaps the reason that U.S. healthcare is subpar is because we are wasting too much money on unnecessary tests that have evolved into the standard of care in this country. If the focus were more on using medical logic to treat patients, rather than protection from medico-legal lawsuits, there might be more money to take care of basic patient healthcare needs, such as preventative medicine. Claim...
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...Canada’s Defining Moment: Medicare Most nations proclaim the doctrine of human equality, yet so few nations do little to prove it. Canada, however, is not most nations. One of Canada’s central operating principles is to use public policy in unique and bold ways to ensure and promote sensible, everyday equality. Medicare is Canada’s best example. Not one single public policy implement ever did more to let the country live up to its equality ideal. Since the inception of Medicare, Canadian society has evolved into a much more inclusive of, accessible to, and tolerant of individuals with various types of disabilities and illnesses. Medicare is Canada’s defining moment as it has ultimately set Canada as the country it is today. Medicare's influential impact on Canadian society was recognized globally and put into effect in other nations all around the world. Equality then became a definition which every Canadian citizen understood. Medicare, as some have labelled “the most Canadian of programs” is the one program that best represents what Canadians value and hold dear. Health care has long been regarded as the most popular public policy in Canada; Canadians feel more strongly about the health care system than conceivably any other issue. Furthermore, publicly-funded health care is tied directly to Canada’s national identity and differentiates Canada from its American neighbours like few other establishments. Moreover, “in 2005, 85% of Canadians believed that ‘eradicating’ public...
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