Preview

Obamacare: The Role Of Health Care Reform In The United States

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1071 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Obamacare: The Role Of Health Care Reform In The United States
Josue Lopez
EN-101
04/25/2012

Today health care reform in the United States is an ongoing battle on Capitol Hill. In 2009 the United States spent around $8,000 per person on health care, that’s 17.6% of our product which is double the amount other industrialized countries spend on health care. Other countries deliver the exact same type of care the United States does but at half the cost. What does this mean about the health care system in place now? This means that there must be some kind of health care reform in the United States. The president has constructed a plan called Obamacare, but this plan will cost the American people more if they do not abide by the individual mandate. If Obamacare is overturned by the Supreme Court it leaves
…show more content…
Other industrialized countries have their governments argue with health care providers, drug companies, and other people that play a part in health care costs. “In countries like Canada and Britain prices are set by the government. In other countries, like Germany and Japan, they are set by providers and insurers sitting in a room and coming to an agreement, with the government stepping in to set prices if they fail.”(Klein) America spends too much on health care and has made the system into capitalism at its finest. The government needs to step in and start negotiating with drug companies and hospitals and insurers to bring down the high costs. Doctors in the United States get paid more than any other doctors in the world, and patients get charged more if they want to see a specialist, but in other countries they’re small costs stay the same whether they see a specialist or not. The United States is leading the world in medical spending and because of the high costs 50 million Americans remain uninsured and dealing with ailments that they cannot afford to have …show more content…
The government does not want to switch to this health care plan for a couple of reasons, one being that this would give the government too much control in our lives by letting them have control of hospitals and doctors. The other concern that the government has is the waiting periods that patients have to endure in emergency rooms and in clinics for minor injuries. The government is also concerned with the fact that by passing such a health care system would lead the nation down the slippery slope of socialism, kind of like how the United States thought if Vietnam fell to communism the whole world would become

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Today, the United States has what many consider to be the worst health care system in the world. The United States has the most expensive system as it accounts for nearly 17.9% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (The World Factbook, 2013). This amounts to a cost of $8608 per person (Health Expenditure per Capita, 2013). The extreme cost of health care make it the leading cause of bankruptcy throughout the United States, and the reason why there are over 48.6 million people who are uninsured with no access to health care at all (Howard, Access and Underserved). This high cost has not translated…

    • 5252 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The topics of health care and health care reform are two of the most highly debated topics in society today. The Obama Care Plan is at the center of the health care crisis. Obama Care is aimed at reinforcing the American system of health care. The main focus of Obama Care is to regulate the industry of health insurance and also reduce spending. Obama Care was signed into law on March 23, 2010. The primary goal of this health care reform plan is to make it possible to be able to provide health care to all U.S. Citizens. There are currently about 44 million Americans that are unable to get health insurance. Obama Care’s major elements was to expand Medicaid and Medicare, where they are able to offer health insurance to a much larger group of citizens. Obama Care also provides assistance to Americans that are unable to afford health care. Another important element of this plan is to provide better wellness and preventative services. The reasoning behind this is that if individuals are able to have regular preventative services then not only is it quicker to diagnose illnesses but the rate of recovery is better and thus the expenses are much lower. (Obamacarefacts, 2014).…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    There is a health care plan called Obama care. This plan was introduced in 2009. This promising coverage covered over 36 million previously uninsured Americans. The opposition from the right stemmed primarily from the “public option”. This is a government insurance provider. The loudest objections accused the plan of being “socialist” because it called for using tax revenue to fund health insurance for those who can’t afford it. In the health care system we need to come up with something that will not break everyone’s pocket but still be effective and affordable for everyone including the poor. We tend to forget about the unfortunate. The government need to come together and fix this problem that we are having with our health care system. The United States spends more money per capita on health care than any other industrialized nation: an estimated $2.3 trillion in 2008, far more than any other industrialized country. Yet its healthcare outcomes lag behind those same comparable countries in terms of health indicators such as life expectancy and infant mortality. Much of the world’s cutting-edge research in genetics, pharmaceuticals, and technology occurs in the United…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Affordable Care Act (2009) and the Health Security Act (1993) were two attempts made to reform the U.S. healthcare system. In 1993 the Clinton administration fought to better the system and provide comprehensible healthcare coverage to its citizens. This bill however was shot down in the legislative system and never made it into law. Then in 2010 the Obama administration squeezed their updated version of the bill through the House and Senate in a very narrow, partisan victory. The reasoning behind why the Clinton’s attempt didn’t get passed came down to two reasons. First it was highly criticized and opposed politically. Secondly it was a matter of concerns about the actual content of the bill.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Escape Fire Analysis

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, criticizes the current healthcare system designed for profit maximization, a physician’s dilemma between financial incentives and professionalism, and quick fixes rather than prevention of illness. The U.S. government spends $2.7 trillion annually on healthcare, and pharmaceutical drugs account for $300 billion, almost as much as the rest of the world combined (Escape Fire). The mindset that drugs are the only appropriate way to treat disease is invalid. Physician salaries are driven by the number of treatments and drugs that are prescribed and administered. The U.S. healthcare system is a business model where economic…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Successful health reform must not just make health insurance affordable, affordable health insurance has to make health care affordable” (Elizabeth Edwards). Universal health care is one of the primary goals the United States wants for all Americans. The fight for universal health care dates back to 1993 when Bill Clinton suggested a reform bill for employers to provide health insurance, but the Senate rejected it and proposed individuals instead of employees to buy insurance. This specific proposal prompted the government with the necessity to create a health care reform. To give all of the nation’s residents basic health insurance, The Affordable Care Act was passed also known as Obamacare in 2010.…

    • 1829 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Pros And Cons Of Obamacare

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The United States is heavily watched around the world in terms of politics or any other action as it is one of the leading countries of the world. Recently, the United States caught the eye of the world in its recent debate of the health care reform. Most commonly referred to as “ObamaCare” the official name is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or for short, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 signed the Affordability Care Act into law to reform the health care industry and it was later upheld by the supreme court on June 28th, 2012. “The goal of ObamaCare is to give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance, and to…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Obamacare Pros And Cons

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Obamacare is the current form of healthcare that our country uses, and it is one of the worst forms of healthcare that has ever been came up with. It is a terrible system that has been a failure since it was first installed as a government mandate that is required for citizens to have. It has a long list of problems that i can only really scratch the surface of in this essay. If you are a Republican, you probably are already against Obamacare; if you are a democrat, you are all for it most likely and can’t understand what's the big deal with it and why everybody hates it so much, but that's where i come in. Obamacare needs to be changed because it is bad, it has failed, it has problems, and why President Trump is going to get rid…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Obamacare facts "Obamacare contains more than a thousand pages of reforms to the insurance industry and health care sector in order to reduce health care costs and provide affordable health insurance for all Americans." This sounds like a great idea, right? This is the American dream, is not it? For many people, this is a great idea that they will finally be able to receive health care and take that burden off their backs. People see this as someone finally caring and listening, politics finally do something for the people, to the people. For the 44 million people who can not afford health care, this is the best reform Obama will do in his presidential period. But what Obama failed to mention in this whirlwind of Obamacare are the negative effects of Obamacare.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Affordable Care Reform

    • 1656 Words
    • 7 Pages

    There have been numerous failed attempts to reform the United States healthcare system over the years. However, the most recent attempt that has been implemented is the Affordable Care Act, under the Obama Administration. As a result, since 2010 changes have been implemented to reform the United States healthcare industry, which affects the insurers, providers, and the subscribers in different ways. Consequently, the Affordable Care Act does not have full support from everyone and it faces numerous challenges (Bodenheimer & Grumbach, 2012). Overall, it is estimated that 2.6 trillion dollars is spent on healthcare in the United States each year (Van Gorder & Topol, 2012). Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge the inflation in healthcare…

    • 1656 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The U.S. healthcare is the most expensive in the world and yet one of the least in terms of quality when compared with peer countries. Consequently health reform has been on the fore front for several years. However there is no consensus on how best to go about reforming the system. The enactment of the ACA in 2010 was one of the boldest attempts to reform U.S. healthcare. Making healthcare affordable to Americans is one of the main goal of the ACT. There is ongoing debate on whether ACA has made healthcare…

    • 215 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Just Government

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Under the current system doctors and drug companies set prices for their services and medicine at whatever the market will accept. Since the bottom forty percent of the market doesn't have money to afford health care the top sixty percent determine the prices and maximizing your profits is a good service for cars, TV's, and anything that the public wants, but when it comes to health care the citizens do not only want health care, but need health care by definition health care is not a consumer product like a car or TV, but it is a…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Escape Fire Paper

    • 1432 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Dr. Don Berwick, Head of Medicare/Medicaid 2010-2011 whom talks about how unsustainable the healthcare system is. We’re spending almost twice as much in America as any other country on earth. Yearly, we have been spending $2.7 trillion in healthcare. The average per capita cost of healthcare in the developed world is about $3,000, but in the United States, it was around $8,000 annually, more than double. Due to these astronomical amounts, healthcare has not become affordable anymore. Insurance companies are raising their rates they are charging for premiums, covering less on patient care, which in turns takes even more money out of our pockets because we now not only have to pay the premiums, but are now left with the portion of the care given that we must pay for out of our pockets.…

    • 1432 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    No matter if a corporation is for profit or not for profit the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have a significant impact. From the employers’ perspective, the ACA has provisions that mandated the expansion of dependent coverage and removed the lifetime dollar limits on overall benefits in 2010. All employers, either profit or not for profit, are subject to this play or pay requirement in the ACA that begins in 2014 and business’ that have 50 or more employees will no longer be able to develop health benefits coverage for their employees that keep their costs down (Wojcik, 2013).…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    To conclude, in the last decade health care cost has risen so drastically in the United States to the point it has become a burden to families who simply trying to live and make a productive living. And the arrival of Obamacare infuriated coverage providers and health care providers to the point that lead the quality of care to dissipate. I tyrant was created in the healthcare system that wields a mighty weapon of capitalistic influence over our elected leaders. The name of this giant is called third party payors, and the weapon is campaign contributions. The cost is steadily rising with no end in…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays