Table of Contents
Introduction
The cost of healthcare insurance in the United States has been significantly high. It is evident that workers tend to pay an average of 1,318 dollars per year out of their pockets before health insurance program was introduced. The health insurance program was established to ensure that those who could not afford the cost of health were assisted by the health insurance providers who could cater part of their health care cost (Brandeisky, para, 1). Over the last decade, the amount of monthly contribution charged by health insurance companies reported a significant increase. For example, in 2010 the insurance premiums rose to 24 percent and are anticipated to rise even further. Therefore, the paper focus to provide a detailed explanation of the reason why the U.S should adopt a national health insurance programs for a modest tax increase.
Why the U.S. should adopt a national health insurance program for a modest tax Increase
There are various reasons why the U.S should adopt The U.S. should adopt a national health insurance program for a modest tax Increase. Among the key reasons is due to failure of the previous and current system to ensure that all persons have equal access to quality healthcare irrespective of once level of income. Having proper healthcare is imperative for a healthy economy, and hence the current health care system has not been able to ensure that all the citizens are adequately covered fully. There is a need for adoption of national health insurance program whereby instead of citizens paying health insurance premiums to the private health insurance providers, the government makes such payment. A modest increase in tax so that some of the proceeds obtained from the tax can be submitted to the insurance companies to cater for health cost of the entire citizen. Adoption of the national health insurance will ensure that citizens do not pay premiums directly to the health insurance but instead the government will pay for their health insurance cover. The amount to be paid by the government to cater for the patient health services will be derived from moderate tax increases (Obama, p.525).
The other reason why there is a need to adopt a national health insurance program for a modest tax Increase is that the previous national health insurance systems could not meet the needs of all the citizens. For example, before the introduction of Obamacare (patient protect on and affordable care act) different states within the United States had a different healthcare system that provided their citizens with a diverse form of health insurance coverage. Each state had its regulation pertaining healthcare insurance. However, most of the aspect of health insurance system across the entire United States had some underlying similarities. It is clear that healthcare system comprises of different kind of players which include but not limited to public and private hospital and clinics. Besides, it has players such as private and public doctors who work in that institution and hence affecting the overall cost of healthcare. It is evident that the cost of accessing healthcare services in the most private hospital was significantly high and therefore most ordinary people could not afford. Those without a job could not easily be able to pay for insurance premiums which the insurance used to provide patients with compensation (Obama, 2016).Those without a work had the most significant challenges together with those with a terminal illness as most private insurance companies demanded higher insurance premiums that majority of the people could not afford.
The other reason why the U.S. should adopt a national health insurance program for a modest tax Increase is that the current Obamacare insurance program is still facing numerous challenges which call for the introduction of a more robust system that will ensure that all citizens have equal access to health care without any barriers. It is worth noting that introduction of Obamacare has provided a solution to the problem of affordable insurance health care. Some of the significant amendments that were established in the patient protect on and affordable care act include expansion of Medicaid to ensure that all the citizens irrespective of their income level could access proper health care services. Secondly, the act assured that those who could not be covered by healthcare insurance providers due to their pre-existing health condition were made eligible. The act also established minimum standards pertaining health insurance policies. Also, those citizens who were not qualified to access health insurance coverage because they did not have an employer were made eligible under the new Obamacare health insurance program. Soon after the establishment of Obamacare the number of America who gets insured increased to over eleven million Americans.
Despite having Obamacare achieved tremendous success the program is still facing significant challenges. Those challenges include affordability problems, resistance problem, the problem of affordability, anemic problem, and expansion of Medicaid challenges. The problem of affordability has been one of the critical challenges facing the current health insurance program. Most employees in the varicose organization are charged more for their health insurance while those without a job find it difficult to pay higher insurance premiums which consequently make the Obamacare system less affordable. The implementation of a national health insurance program for a modest tax will help to solve affordability problem because the U.S government will be the one that will be responsible for paying such cost. Also, There has been political resistance as some of the political parties feel that the current health insurance care system is unsuitable and hence making it quite difficult to adopt it due to political pressure entirely. There has been anemic enrollment to the current U.S health insurance program as some Hispanics, and young people find it difficult to pay for insurance premiums. The introduction of national health insurance program will be a proper solution as the government will directly pay the cost of healthcare without asking for the citizens to make health insurance payments. The adoption of national health insurance program for a moderate tax increase will help to ensure that the problem of expansion of Medicaid that is currently experience under the Obamacare program has been addressed (Keehan et al., p.533).
Conclusion
The current health insurance program such as Obamacare has been facing numerous challenges as discussed. It is crystal clear that it has been a big problem of ensuring that all the state has adopted the program. Some Republican governors were against the Obamacare, and hence the adoption of a national insurance program for a moderate tax increase in the U.S will help to address such challenge and ensure that all citizens in the U.S can access proper health care without incurring significant cost.
- Brandeisky.K. Family Finance Health Insurance: Here’s How Much the Average American Worker Has to Pay for Health Care. 22.09.2015. Web. 05-12.2017.http://time.com/ money/4044394/average-health-deductible-premium/.
- Keehan, Sean P., et al. “National health expenditure projections, 2016–25: price increases, aging push sector to 20 percent of economy.” Health Affairs 36.3 (2017): 553-563.
- Obama, Barack. “United States health care reform: progress to date and next steps.” Jama 316.5 (2016): 525-532.