Two Harvard academics, Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle wrote the article The Morale Hazard Myth. They also were the two authors of a popular book that discussed health care coverage in the United States “Uninsured in America”. The article primarily discussed 2 issues in healthcare that Americans are facing. Along with Americans not having health coverage, there is also an issue of moral hazard. Moral hazard is the concept in health care that says that once someone has insurance they will overuse it and abuse health coverage. Many aspects of people’s lives are impacted when they are uninsured including their health, employment status and personal lives. The article stated it the best when it said, “Because the uninsured are sicker …show more content…
These economic concepts were scarcity and choice and self -interest. The first economic concept of scarcity and choice is seen when the authors discuss money as a limited resource. The limited resources which in this case is money by incomes that cause people to decline health insurance coverage. According to Sered and Fernandopulle, it is an individual’s choice not to get any health insurance because they cannot afford it. Sometimes it comes down to choosing to pay their bills or have proper health coverage. People that are at the poverty line can’t afford to pay such high monthly premiums and as a result decline coverage as a choice. We also see the economic concept of self-interest within the article. Often times an imbalance in the health market is created when the younger generation who is usually health doesn’t feel the need to have health coverage. For young folks it is in their self-interest to pay out of pocket only a few times if needed rather than pay monthly premiums. In the end they’ll pay less than they would for having health insurance. With those that are insured favoring a moral hazard and overusing the system could lead to a negative impact on our health care system leaving those who truly needing services paying a higher premium or
Opposition of Medicaid The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare was meant to lower the cost of health insurance for low-income Americans making health care more affordable. The idea of this act caught everyone’s attention and seemed to be too good to be true, after hearing the promises made in the act by the Federal Government. States had a choice to accept it or reject it, the government would pay one-hundred percent the first three years and eventually be responsible for only ten percent of the cost by the year 2020. Many states rejected Medicaid expansion causing a coverage gap 3.1 million people uninsured poor adults. Enacting this law took a huge toll on the insurers, enforcing rules that will change the way they spend their funds and either
This mother works hard to make a living for her family, yet still finds it hard to make ends meet. This mother has to pay insurance for her and her 3 children at $1,000.00 dollars a month for her premium, plus her fluctuating copayments at each doctor or hospital visit on top of having to meet a $5,000.00 deductible for the insurance company to pay a hundred percent of anything. With all of that this single mother has a 20 percent co insurance which is the out of pocket expense that she has to meet each visit. Now take this very same example with a single payer source, the government. This mother can still work and make a decent living for her and her children and her healthcare will be paid for.
How does this tie into the American healthcare system? One of the main reasons healthcare reform is not widely accepted in America is because of self-benefit; many people are opposed to a higher tax, as it could be looked at as unfair. However, when looked upon in a different light, these
Over the late years the quantities of uninsured Americans has fundamentally expanded. The 2.2 million late development of uninsured is for the most part because of age and salary changes. At that, most Americans trust that protection scope and access to human services framework are the issues that ought to be organized, and it is the immediate obligation of the central government to guarantee restorative watch over those natives that need protection, even through raising expenses. Today, the US society confronts the continuous problem of "whether the administration ought to make a noteworthy or a constrained push to give medical coverage to the uninsured" (The Henry J. Keiser Family Foundation 1). On the other hand, no choice has yet got
We face the uncertainty of the government making more changes to the healthcare industry and the insurance marketplace. If patients can’t afford healthcare, they will forgo the insurance premiums to help save some money. Obamacare has changed that way of thinking. Patients are now fined or penalized for not having insurance, but the insurance that is available is too costly for anyone to afford. Patients just have to pray they don’t get sick and need insurance.
Insurance companies have to cover sick individuals so it increases the cost of everyone’s insurance. What good does this do? Those who pay
Background The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is officially referred to as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted into law on March 23, 2010. It is estimated that prior to the enactment of the ACA, 44% or 81 million people between the ages 19-64 were either uninsured or underinsured in the United States (Schoen, Doty, Robertson, & Collins, 2011). The populations most likely to be uninsured or underinsured are individuals with earning between 133-200 % below the established federal poverty guidelines (Schoen et al., 2011). Consequently, 80% of individuals with earning under $20,000-$39,999 were uninsured or underinsured (Schoen et al., 2011).
46.8 million Americans were reported as uninsured in 2013, which equivocates to one sixth of the population. Those without insurance have revealed that they risk “more problems getting care, are diagnosed at later disease stages, and get less therapeutic care” (National Health Care Disparities Report) and those insured risk losing their insurance. Inadequately covered citizens are often working-class individuals who simply cannot receive insurance due to uncontrollable inconveniences and therefore jeopardize having medical coverage. In these instances, Americans have a chance of being diagnosed with diseases that they had no opportunity to prevent or could not diagnose them at an early stage of the illness. Patients have suffered unnecessarily due to lack of health care, and “18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance” (PNHP).
(New York Times) Essentially, this statistic states that healthcare can benefit the future economy. Children will grow up to be financially stable, and will then be able to pay their taxes to further provide for the next generation of low-income citizens. Moreover, not only will egalitarian policies fill the gap of inequality, but they can also provide stability for the future economy. Providing government health care is the most moralistic approach to help those who cannot afford medicare– between 2000 and 2005, “more than 130,000 Americans died because of their lack of health insurance” (obamacarefacts.com)
In the United States, healthcare is primarily a for-profit organization, this has resulted in unreasonable costs. Additionally, the lack of universal healthcare coverage and insurance options for low-income individuals heightens the problem. These issues have led to a system where access to healthcare is a privilege rather than a right. By viewing the high cost of healthcare through the lens of sociological imagination, I can understand it as a symptom of larger societal problems.
Healthcare financing in its broad sense means paying for health insurance premiums. Providers rely on patient’s insurance status to get reimbursed for the services they provided and there are various methods to determine how providers are paid. Financing has the impact of determining who has access to healthcare and who does not, even though many uninsured have access to charity care it still plays a role for those who remain uninsured. The demand of healthcare is impacted by financing of services, health insurance increases demand for covered services. The demand for healthcare services would be less if services were to be paid out of pocket.
Should the government play a key role in aiding the uninsured, or should market forces reign supreme? I believe the government needs to play a key role in aiding the uninsured. Our country's core value is “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” I believe healthcare is applied to this core value with governments helping insure United States citizens.
Women make up the majority of the uninsured, and that’s probably has something to do with the pay inequality. You can’t expect a single mother to be able to afford food, shelter, clothing, gas, and everything else that comes with raising a child and
In this presentation, the focus will be in the field of economics. The central problem of economics involves the study of scarcity (limited choices and unlimited wants). It shows how individuals, societies, governments, businesses, households allocate their scarce resources when faced with the problem of scarcity. It is about the choices that we make and the effects of our choices on each other. Economics is highly applicable to every aspect of our lives, from the decisions we make as individuals to the structures created by governments and firms.
Although, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure are all results of preexists illness that could have be avoided by simply being treated and educated by a healthcare provider. The lack of adequate healthcare and insurance makes it nearly impossible for the uninsured and underinsured to obtain treatment for preexisting conditions. This book also gives many illustrations of how the healthcare system in America fails to adequately care for the poor. An example of the lack of adequate healthcare of a preexist condition that could have been avoided and treated, was when Robert first had a sign that his kidneys was failing and the doctor never told him the severe natural or to come back, due to him not having adequate medical coverage for a kidney diagnostics (Abraham, 1993). Another illustrates is Ms. Jackson spent down program, in which, because she qualified for Medicaid only during the months that her medical expenses were so high they forced her income to drop below a “medically needy” level set by the state (Abraham, 1993).