Health Care Reform

Health Care Reform has been a controversy for many decades. Past presidents have tried hard to create a new reform but have not been successful until now with Obama. While it is not perfect, it is a new step towards a better health care system. The purpose of the bill is to make sure everyone can get affordable, quality health care from guaranteed insurance and reduce health care costs. The US currently spends over 2.5 trillion dollars for healthcare and it still continues to rise exponentially. Many people in America are uninsured which causes harm to both themselves and to the health care system as they are not getting the treatment they deserve and need, and more debts are being created in the end. Now with the bill, all people with income below 133% of the federal poverty level will be able to go into medicaid. Insurance is guaranteed and medical underwriting is not allowed. It will be easier to access health care for everyone. Medicaid, medicare, and public health will all be improved. It will an extra cost of about 950 billion over 10 years to fully implement the changes but in the long run, less money will be spent on health care and costs will be reduced.

Democrats supported this bill greatly and it was finally passed.

Democrats stand for the interests of the working Americans and want personal liberties

for all. Their goal is to raise the economy, create affordable healthcare for Americans,

have retirement security, and many more. Democrats want the government to make

changes to better the lives of all Americans. The democrats are considered more liberal

so they would support health care reform. The republicans greatly opposed the reform.

Republicans oppose health care reform as they believe government is given more power

from controlling America's health care. Less power is given to the citizens in the choice of

health care then. Also, there is greater taxation on wealthier people with the health care

reform. Republicans are considered more conservative and health care reform is a

huge change. To appease the Republicans, few changes have been made to the health bill.

I think the health care reform bill is a good change. So far, the current health care system

has not been working well so hopefully this new change will bring a better health care

system to the US. I think it is good how people are mandated to get health insurance

now but at the same time, insurance is made affordable and easy to access so everyone in the

US can be insured. Health care expenditures will lower and hopefully the money can go

towards other areas like public health and improve things in America greatly. Everyone in

my family is already insured so there probably won't be a major change. We may have to

pay higher tax but it will be for the better in the long run. This reform could my grandparents

more as they are on medicare and it is supposed to be improved.

The healthcare system before the reform had some strengths. If insured, people would

have great consumer access and America is top in medical technologies. Financial

incentives also worked well for special services between physicians and insurance companies.

Of course there were many other strengths but it also had many weaknesses. Hopefully

with the reform, America's health care system will gain even more strengths. If ranking

of the US in least infant mortality and lifespan goes up and health care does not cost so

much, it would a good indicator the new health care is working well.

Health Care Spending

This article highlights how the recession in the economy greatly affects Health Care Spending. Private payers slow down and public spending greatly increases. Private payers can include self pay, group pay purchased per person, or employer-provided. In contrast, public spending is usually affected by age such as the elderly receiving medicare, financial status where people use medicaid, and special populations which include the dod or va for the military and veterans and more. Because of the recent recession, private spending is expected to go down and public spending is expected to increase. Not only does the economy affect the healthcare system, but the baby boomers are now requiring medicare, so public healthcare spending would increase. In the lecture, there is a graph that shows private health insurance was growing rapidly until 2007 but now the article states private payers are decreasing. This is not surprising as with low economies, more people are likely to become unemployed and lose their company insurance or are unable to afford expensive health insurances. The article also states public payers will pay for a little over half of the U.S.'s health care. This would lead to an increase of tax for everyone as more money is required for the public health care system. Medicine prices are also expected to decrease from the economy's crash. The bad economy has contributed to slower spending growth and rise in public spending such as medicaid instead of private health care.

Continued increases in healthcare spending would imply there are more patients using healthcare and receiving the care they need. But this also means more money is required for healthcare. Healthcare could be becoming more expensive from physicians, equipment, and medicine. National Health spending is greatly affected by purchase of health care goods and services. Continued proportional spending in public spending means more people are switching from private to public. This is due to the recession in the economy and more people becoming older and switching to medicare. Medicare is fully federal funded and medicaid is fifty percent state funded.Most of this money would come from taxes meaning the government would have to increase taxes even more. Healthcare could also become unaffordable for most people. Growth in medicare and medicaid means the economy is bad and less people are able to afford important things such as health care. In contrast, growth in private spending would mean the economy is better and more people are employed with employers' health insurances and living better.

There seems to be many problems with the US healthcare and its reform. Trillions are dollars are spent, yet the system is not perfect. Many people are still not receiving the basic healthcare they need. This could lead to graver diseases or situations and owing more money in the end. Huge public hospitals have closed from the economic recession. This is probably because general hospitals are more likely to have debt in emergency rooms and the patients are not likely to have health insurance. Although the US is a wealthy nation, not everyone is covered with insurance and its healthcare system is not as great as other countries'. If I could change one thing about the healthcare system, I would probably want to have universal coverage. This way, everyone could have insurance and there would be less problems with debts and being unable to pay. People who are uninsured are more likely to end up in the emergency room because they neglect their health and this would lead to greater costs for the government. People would not have to worry about health care based on financial status, age, or location. Infant mortality would probably go down and life expectancy would increase if everyone had insurance. Putting more emphasis on disease prevention could work too but it would probably only have short term effects and health care would end up right where it started.

I didn't know before how much the economy affected the US healthcare system. So much money is spent on healthcare but all this money just seems to disappear. Of course the article stated that these were just assumptions but it is scary to see how much more people will be paying for healthcare within the next decade. If this continues, I feel like more people will be unable to afford insurance and less people would be insured. I've heard many negative and positive responses of Britain's health care system. Although there are some cons to having a universal health care system, there are many good pros too. Less money is spent per person in Britain as opposed to the US so it is affordable for everyone. Also, Britain ranks above the US in healthcare. And if people really want private health care, they have the option to purchase their own and go to private hospitals. Maybe if the US followed Britain's example, there would be less problems within health care. Of course not every health care system can be perfect.

challenge of global health

This article is on how even though donors give large amounts of money, global health is worsening over the years. The money is not spent where it is needed the most and causes more harm than benefit to developing countries. There are many problems with the global health-care system and there needs to be change.

Global health is worsening even with large amounts of money because the money goes to wrong places. Money is not spent on where it is actually needed but rather where the donor would get the most out of it such as publicity. The money is controlled by the donor so it is not really effective. The real problems are not tackled and even some of the money are used in the wrong places because they are not properly regulated. Many of the money is spent towards HIV/Aids when there are also many other diseases that need to be cured. Also the need for physicians is growing because many are dying or simply emigrating to America for money and leaving developing countries. No one is willing to tackle all of global health's problems either. The money may focus only on one problem too much shadowing other major health problems such as a mother receiving drugs for Aids but not even getting the most basic care for childbirth or infant care.

The two markers for a good healthcare system is increased maternal survival and increased overall life expectancy. Maternal survival is important because if pregnant women are surviving, it means the facility is clean, well-kept, safe, fully staffed, and well supplied in medicine and sterile equipment. This in turn shows a good health-care system where people can get treated right. Longer life expectancy shows the overall population is surviving longer and living healthier lives. This shows living standards are up to par and there are not many diseases shortening life expectancies. A good health-care system would lead to longer life expectancies. It would show there are no major problems affecting the population and everyone is getting treated with quality.

A new strain of TB called the XDR-TB has emerged with devastating effects. It is almost always lethal and threatens many communities in the world. This strain mutated from TB by becoming resistant to antibiotics and has become deadly. This is linked to poor general health system. TB treatment was not handled well because the money was not used wisely in where it was needed and so this new strain has developed and hurt more people. The therapy was not done effectively and created the emergence of a lethal, drug-resistant strain. Another harm from donors not using the money correctly is higher spread of HIV among children. Because the money is not given to where is it most needed such as clinics, physicians are forced to reuse syringes to give vaccinations to children which spreads HIV. Not only with syringes, but also equipment and blood-bank systems that lack proper care and sterilization because of low funding spreads HIV easily among the population.