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Essay / Why America's Health Care Policy Needs Reform
Many leaders of our great nation have attempted to establish a plan that could take care of Americans, especially when it comes to rising health care prices and insurance premiums. “Nearly one in six Americans do not have health insurance, health care costs are rising rapidly, administrative costs are excessive, and medical errors are commonplace” (Fuchs Emmanuel). However, many Americans disagree about the nature of the Affordable Care Act and whether it will help or harm Americans, creating a disruption in the tide of many policies. There is one thing that is certain; many people are not covered by insurance which seems extremely high in this day and age. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay To better understand this epidemic, the past must be considered as it relates to what the present and future hold. Many Americans have just noticed this problem, but "Barack Obama's health care law follows a century of debate over the role government should play in helping U.S. citizens afford health care." medical” (Fox News). In 1929, Dallas teachers were required to pay two quarters per month to cover up to three weeks of hospital care per year; unfortunately, this plan did not last long. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spent seven of his twelve years in office (1935-1942) attempting to create a national health insurance program. Nonetheless, he decided to push for Social Security and established minimum wage laws and price controls. Despite these changes, companies were unable to attract employees during World War II even with higher wages, and so they also added other incentives such as health insurance. President Kennedy's main campaign issue was health care, but he failed to get Congress to pass a plan for the elderly. Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor) were created by “legendary pressure from President Lyndon B. Johnson and a Congress dominated by his Democratic colleagues” (Fox News). Both President Nixon and President Carter attempted to create health care plans, but the Watergate scandal intervened as did the economic recession. Since 1935, most presidents have run with an agenda to promote health care, whether large or small, and have attempted to pass numerous bills, most of which have been postponed due to public interest in other events. (Fox News) “[A] major problem in the organization and delivery of care is the lack of attention to benefit-cost trade-offs” (Fuchs Emmanuel). The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is touted to provide more benefits and fewer disadvantages to women than to men. “Many new ObamaCare benefits for women are required by law not to require out-of-pocket payments” (ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare). Another expansion of health care laws was Medicaid, which was expanded to “cover more than 15 million low-income individuals and families previously uninsured and below the poverty line” (ObamaCare: Benefits and Benefits). disadvantages of ObamaCare). Several beneficial elements have made Medicare one of the most popular provisions. One of them is the increase in coverage options and benefits formillion elderly people. Hospital and home health care payments also declined with Medicare use. “With the Affordable Care Act, businesses are now required to offer affordable health insurance coverage to at least 95 percent of their full-time staff and their dependents. If they fail to meet this requirement, employers could be fined $2,000 to $3,000 per employee each year” (Craver). Some small businesses and mom-and-pop stores are now focusing on the numbers and where their business is in relation to how to grow it. Thousands of business owners and CEOs have complained about these new requirements. “This is happening,” insisted Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has 1.2 million members. "Wait a year. You'll see a huge impact as workers see their hours reduced and their income reduced" (Myers). NBC News spoke with nearly twenty small businesses and other entities across the country, and the majority said the new law would result in reduced hours for most employees. These new implementations have been dubbed the "employer mandate", which has been delayed until July, now businesses with more than fifty employees, "will not be penalized for failure to comply." offer insurance to full-time employees until January 1, 2015” (Myers). A recent Gallup poll found that because of the Affordable Care Act, only forty-one percent of small businesses initiated a hiring freeze, nineteen percent shriveled. Among their workforce, eighteen percent have “reduced employee work hours or part-time.” “Nearly four in ten small businesses – 38 percent – told pollsters that they “gave up plans to grow their business” in anticipation of the law's implementation. » (Tennant). With all of this troubling testimony, it's hard to see that only 0.2% of companies that meet the criteria currently don't offer insurance to their full-time employees. (ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare) Another problem with these new requirements is that federal law has reduced the number of hours an individual must work to be considered a full-time employee, leading to Companies to reduce their employees' working hours so that they are not classified as full-time employees. full-time and therefore do not need to be insured. There are dozens of different views, both positive and negative, on the Affordable Care Act. Some of the issues with the new law concern funding for women's health services, such as contraception. There are some restrictions written into the law that prevent these services to women based on religious vocations. ObamaCare also standardizes insurance premiums and finds ways to reduce costs, improve insurance quality, and prevent insurance company abuse. Some of the benefits of the health care law include giving Americans access to hundreds of new health care benefits and access to prevention and wellness services at no additional cost. “ObamaCare is expected to cost $1.1 trillion over the next ten years, and for the program to work as planned, it will need to include funding from taxpayers and states. However, the end result of ObamaCare spending is a deficit reduction of $200 billion over the next decade. States..