EVOLUTION OF THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM AND ITS IMPACT ON UNIVERSAL HEALTH (Research Paper Sample)

Evolution of the Health Care System and its Impact on Universal Health Student Name University Name From the declaration of independence, inherent and inalienable right to preservation of life is cited as a fundamental obligation owed its citizens by the government. Consequently, the provision of quality and accessible health care to the nation would fulfill this commitment. While universal healthcare has been achieved in developed nations such as Switzerland, Canada, Japan and German just to mention but a few, the situation remains rather stark for the USA; a global super power that should be a pack leader in this frontier. It is the pursuit of these ideals that has bore multiple reforms in the health care system since 1965 with the introduction of Government sponsored medical insurance schemes targeting vulnerable community members; Medicare for senior citizens (later extended to cover the disabled) and Medicaid for the low income populace respectively. While some of the changes have been positive in promoting this endeavor, one could argue against recent changes in the last few years that threaten to undermine these advancements. Undeniably, the 2010 Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also called ACA or “Obamacare” was a comprehensive piece of legislation whose protracted impact over time was to rid the health insurance sector of bad practices thereby enhancing quality, accessibility, and consequently the reach and impact of our health care system. By doing away with pre-existing condition screening and charging higher premiums, eliminating yearly and coverage limits, as well as annulment of policies on technicalities often with pending illness, meaningful steps were made towards this ideal. (Maruthappu, Ologunde, & Gunarajasingam, 2013). Further to this, in 2015, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and the second largest change in scale to our health care system after the ACA made primary provisions to boost funding as well as extensions to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which enhanced both coverage and reach of health care interventions. Moreover, by introducing a Merit Based Incentive (MIP) for reimbursing Medicare doctors it strengthened the accountability and quality of service provision within the model. Irrespective of the benefits to be accrued with the above policies, an overall repeal through executive order (13765) on January 20th 2017 of the ACA act was made. Although, it failed, it did manage to dent the policy by allowing a repeal of the individual mandate. This had the undue effect of reducing the number of people procuring insurance services with consequent cuts in federal funding. Moreover, administrative decisions to eliminate enforcement laws for those who opt to remain uninsured till the end of 2018 when the mandate is still in effect, declining to fund cost sharing subsidies as well as supporting negative rhetoric regarding the act, further exacerbated a progressively worsening situation. Prospects are that the number of those uninsured will drastically increase (23 million citizens) and higher premiums charged to senior citizens and the poor populace. This is a foregone conclusion if the American Health Care Act (AHCA) which also passed narrowly in the United States House of Representatives on May 4 2017 is enacted. The only beneficiaries would be the wealthy who stand to benefit from tax cuts and a lower insurance risk group (the young, rich and healthy) who will pay lower premiums. However, a lot still hangs in the balance depending on the political landscape and who is in control ...