HEALTH CARE REFORM

Health Care Reform (BILL OBAMA 2009)

Health Care Reform (BILL OBAMA 2009)

America is without a question the leading country of medical and scientific advances. There always seem to be a new medical breakthrough every time you watch the news or read the paper, especially in the cure of certain diseases. However, the medical research requires an enormous amount of money. The U.S. spends the most money on health care yet many people, mainly the working class Americans are still without any type of health insurance and thus are more susceptible to health risks and problems. (Botterweck et al., 2004)

Most Americans obtain health insurance from employers or government programs, but then there are those groups of Americans, approximately 41.2 million people in 2001, who are without health insurance. There has also been a shift in the typical uninsured individual, resulting in those whose annual income of $75,000 or more increasing 77% from 1995 to 2001 of the total number of uninsured people, according to the National Centre for Policy Analysis. Thus, rather than the very poor or unemployed comprising the largest group of the uninsured, it is the middle, working class of people that are increasingly lacking health insurance. 49.6% of the uninsured are from the ages of 18 to 24, followed by 25-44 year olds making up 32.7%. Of the uninsured, they either refuse to pay for health care or they are employees of small businesses that don't provide any health benefits. Another reason for their lack of coverage might be that they have been temporarily unemployed since 60% of the uninsured are without coverage for nine months or less.

Many feel that universal coverage for all is impossible, but change takes time and every step closer we take towards that goal is quite essential. Originally, programs have been targeted towards the poor and uninsured such as Medicare and Medicaid, but since there has been a shift towards the middle class being uninsured, the focus has changed upon them now. Pres. Bush has proposed spending $89 billion during the next 10 years on tax credits that would enable low to middle income people to buy health insurance (Botterweck et al., 2004). Specifically, a family of four with an income of less that $25,000 could receive up to $3,000 towards the purchase of an insurance policy and an individual who makes $15,000 or less would receive $1,000. Thus, those in the work force would receive financial help to obtain health coverage. Also under Pres. Bush's plan for the uninsured include the expansion of facilities providing preventive and primary care so that more people have access to care and are taking care of their health early on. This element is extremely important because uninsured people lack a regular source of medical care and thus usually end up using the emergency room for care when it could've been prevented by receiving screening and preventive care. By preventing the use of the emergency room by early screening and prevention, costs of medical care will also ...