Select a health policy issue from the list below. Analyze the policy issue using the given criteria. Assume that you must advocate for or argue against the policy issue in front of a Congressional health committee.
Health Policy Issues – Universal Health Insurance
Criteria for analyzing the policy issue
Identify the committee that you will present your research in front of. Also include the names of the committee members.
Research the policy issue using the most up to date sources.
Get custom essay samples and course-specific study resources via course hero homework for you service – Include background information on the issue, facts, your proposal, and arguments (pros and cons).
Be sure to address the political, financial, and economic issues related to the health policy.
Your research should provide answers to the following:
Ace my homework – Write my paper – Online assignment help tutors – Discuss the specifics of who will be eligible and who will be responsible for providing services.
Ace my homework – Write my paper – Online assignment help tutors – Discuss the impact of your proposal on recipients and providers of care. Get custom essay samples and course-specific study resources via course hero homework for you service – Include eligibility requirements for receiving benefits, application process, expected benefits, requirements for a provider to be eligible.
Identify the specific government health programs and organizations that are involved and analyze their role in the policy.
Examine budgetary issues such who will be responsible for funding: state, federal, or a combination of both.
In your closing argument (conclusion slide), make a final plea to Congress in pushing your agenda forward. Your argument should be compelling and grounded in facts.
In a Microsoft Word document, create a 4- to 5-page report on your research on the policy issue.
On the basis of your understanding about CHIP, create a 2- to 3-page report in a Microsoft Word document on the political challenges regarding the CHIP.
Your report should be created using the following guidelines:
Review at least two articles on the given topic, and write a review for each article.
Evaluate the main points of the articles, and relate them to your course and text readings.
Compare and contrast each article reviewed. Which of these articles do you find more relevant from a professional point of view, and why?
Note: Find at least two sources of information for the topic utilizing such resources as the South University Online Library journal databases (for example, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) or ProQuest) or reputable Internet resources. Do not use the text or the assigned articles for this assignment.
Support your responses with examples.
Cite any sources in Ace homework tutors – APA format.
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Health Policy Issue: Universal Health Insurance
Author’s Name
University Name
Universal Health Insurance
Eligibility and Provider
The government will provide universal health care. This will be achieved through initiation of major reform programs for health mainly aimed at delivering a single-tier health service. The single-tier health service will be supported with Universal Health Insurance and all the people will access it based on their needs and not their ability to pay.
As implied in the basis of provision universal health insurance, all people will have equal access to healthcare based on their needs and uninfluenced by income. Additionally, all people will be insured for a standard compendium of curative healthcare service with no distinction made between public and private patients. This program will also include universal GP care and a universal hospital care that includes independent non-profit trusts and private hospice. The universal health insurance will, however, not include social health services but the later will be integrated around the users. The system will be a multi-payer insurer model with competing insurers (Kotlikoff, 2007).
Impacts This Proposal on Providers and Recipients
Better Cover for Patients. This plan seeks to create a federally administered single-payer healthcare program which will make it possible to provide comprehensive coverage for all the people. The plan will also will cover the healthcare continuum in entirety; patient to outpatient, primary care to specialty care and preventive to emergency care. The specialty care include: long-term and palliatable care, hearing and vision, oral, mental and substance abuse. Medical prescriptions, supplies, medical equipment, diagnostics and treatments will be part of this program too, as stated by Mayes (2005). The patients’ choice of healthcare providers will not be restricted by whether the provider is in-network or not and the care that the patients need will be provided with necessarily reading the fine print or meeting the out-of-pocket costs. All a patient will be required to do is to provide the doctor with his insurance card. No more deductibles, copays and no complaints of unresponsive insurance firms.
The patients will also be able to save much money that is currently being spent on health care services. When the healthcare systems are reformed, the cost of insurance and hence of healthcare will be reduced by a greater margin. The payment systems are supposedly going to be simplified so that the patients will get better care services with huge savings on health cost. Americans’ estimate that a similar plan can save them over $6 trillion in the next decade.
Getting the Cost of Healthcare under Control. Currently, we outspend all other countries in the world in healthcare and yet our health cost continuous to soar at rates that are well above the inflation rates. By creating a single health insurance system will help to curb overshoots in our spending as stated by Kotlikoff (2007). The high levels of administrative costs in the health sector are as a result of many insurance agencies which set different reimbursement rates for different providers and procedures. For example, two patients with the same health condition can receive different healthcare depending upon where they live, what their insurance covers and the type of insurance covers they have.
Also, a patient may end up pay different amounts of money for the same prescription filled in two different places (Mayes, 2005. This has forced the healthcare providers and patients to navigate through this bewilderment and as a consequence waste a lot of time and resources. When the integrated health system is finally adopted, the government will be able to effectively and successfully negotiate with drug companies for fair prices for the people as a whole. The federal governments’ ability to track the access to different providers will be made easy to avoid provider shortages and to make sure that the community members access the providers they need.
Budgetary Issues
Universal healthcare insurance in many nations has been accomplished by a blended model of financing. In general, tax collection income is the essential wellspring of financing, however, in numerous nations it is supplemented by certain duties (which might be charged to the individual and/or a business) or with the choice of private installments (either immediate or through discretionary protection) for administrations past those insured by the general public system.
Bernie Sanders, one of the democrats’ ticket contenders, has already outlined how he would finance the universal healthcare insurance. In 2013, he proposed two types of taxes to fund the program. The taxes encompassed a payroll tax of 6.7% on employers and a progressive income tax. The payroll tax of 6.7% will be paid on all wages or self-employment income. Married taxpayers with a monthly earning less than $250000 would pay income tax starting at the rate of 2.2% and increases as the income increases according the standard practices for tax. Sanders plan requires that married couple with a monthly earning of $5 million will be charged a surcharge of 5.4%. The Hillary Clinton campaign team say that Bernie’s proposal will overburden the middle class with additional taxes while Sanders claim that the plan will save them money. However, financial analysts have determined the money raised from taxation is a far much less than the minimum required to sustain the program and it will force Bernie’s government (if he were to look for alternatives of supplementing these collections.
Programs and Organizations they Are Involved
Other programs that effect of universal healthcare insurance are the Medicare. Medicare is a medical insurance for people with 65 years and above. It covers the complication in the health of the aged. Renal disease set in at certain age. This can cause kidney disease. The second program that competes universal healthcare insurance is the Medicaid with covers low income people who lack or have an inadequate medical insurance. The federal government gives the guidelines and procedures that are used in rewarding the benefits of Medicaid. However, there are specific eligibility requirements for one to receive the Medicaid benefits and the scope of time for the same is determined by the specific states. Additionally there is also the Obamcare that has met resistance almost equaling the support. Regardless, of these insurance policies, the implementation of a universal healthcare insurance remains unaffected (Kotlikoff, 2007).
Since, universal health insurance is cheaper and all inclusive, I request that this congress grant it funding. As compared to Medicaid and Medicare which are restricted to people of low income and people above 65 years of old respectively, universal healthcare makes no preference to any person despite the age or economic status.
References
Kotlikoff, L. J. (2007). The healthcare fix: Universal insurance for all Americans. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Mayes, R. (2005). Universal coverage: The elusive quest for national health insurance. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
