From Access to Comprehensive Healthcare Must Be Basic Right for All U.S. Citizens by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, I have quoted the following excerpts.
"To be a good and great nation - not just a strong - we must provide basic healthcare coverage to all Americans...
We need a national healthcare program that will build upon our current Medicare program and incorporate some changes.
The program should be universal, covering not only the elderly but all U.S. citizens and residents.
The program should be comprehensive so that the people can get all of the care they need, no matter what their income...
The program should be federally administered to ensure equal protection for everyone. It should be subsidized by health taxes and general revenues.
All Americans should enjoy the freedom to choose their health care providers...
With a universal and comprehensive program, national health care finally will become a basic right in the United States."
Now, on this particular blog, answer the questions in the syllabus.
You Can’t Be Denied Coverage
ReplyDeleteThe United States is the only developed country in the world to not have a universal health care system for its citizens. Medicaid and Medicare do not count because they target a select group of citizens. Many people support universal health care claiming it is a birthright and everyone should have access to care. We will see increase in taxes to fund this universal health care system, but I think this will be fair and helpful to those that have pre-existing conditions. Some insurance companies discriminate, deny coverage, or charge higher premiums against pre-existing conditions.
A person with a pre-existing condition can cost an insurance company millions, it is in their best interest to exclude those who have them. Many Americans have health-related problems that insurance companies define as pre existing conditions. A pre-existing condition is a health problem that existed before you apply for a health insurance policy or enroll in a new health plan. Insurance companies and health plans are concerned about their financial bottom line – it’s in their best interest, therefore, to exclude people with a pre-existing condition, impose a waiting period before coverage starts, or charge higher premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. (Bihari).
So-called “exclusions” typically relate to pre-existing conditions. Thus, in buying a health care policy, the insured is typically unable to obtain coverage that will pay for medical care as it relates to a pre-existing condition.
Older Americans, not yet eligible for Medicare, are in a very difficult situation when in comes to purchasing individual insurance. They seek insurance in order to protect them from high costs in case of catastrophic illness, but also to aid in the payment for care related to typical illnesses and conditions that afflict people as they age. Insurance companies are private, for profit, businesses. They compete to obtain clients who are healthy and who will pay the most premiums while requiring the least care, doing this through marketing campaigns, but also through exclusion of pre-existing conditions. Customers do not have good options and deciding to not purchase insurance and relying on public health facilities and emergency room care can be risky and inconvenient. (Seltzer).
Insurance discrimination based on pre-existing conditions makes adequate health insurance unavailable to millions of Americans. In 45 states across the country, insurance companies can discriminate against people based on their pre-existing conditions when they try to purchase health insurance directly from insurance companies in the individual insurance market. Insurers can deny them coverage, charge higher premiums, and/or refuse to cover that particular medical condition. Health Insurance Reform Will Provide Stability and Security for All Americans under health insurance reform, insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing coverage because of someone’s medical history or health risk.Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies will not be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.And insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who are or become ill. (Seshamani).
ReplyDeleteI use to work at a doctor’s office that paid for my family’s health insurance and me. This was a blessing. When I moved to Oklahoma, I was able to take on the same coverage with the same insurance company at the cost that my employer had. I was very thankful, because I was diagnosed with a pre-existing condition. I could have been paying for COBRA insurance, which is extremely expensive. If I had to look and find an insurance company that excepted my pre-existing condition, I had to wait a year before they could cover that condition. It is a serious pre-existing condition that I didn’t need to procrastinate in monthly treatments or it could become to the point of death. Also getting another insurance company, because of the pre-existing condition, I had to pay a higher premium than I’m paying out of pocket now.
Look at all of all the people that have lost their jobs to the recession and no longer have insurance. They have to find someone to cover them with pre-existing conditions and besides they don’t have the finances to pay for the coverage. The universal health care plan will be very helpful to those that have pre-existing conditions and has a difficult time finding coverage. With the universal health care program, you can’t be denied coverage.
Works Citied
ReplyDeleteBihari, Michael. “Pre Existing Conditions - Understanding Exclusions and Creditable
Coverage”. About.com Guide. 15 Apr. 2010. 20 Nov. 2010. .
Seltzer, Marc. “Pre-Existing Conditions and Health Care Reform”. Politicsunlocked.com.
1 Jul. 2009. 20 Nov. 2010. .
Seshamani, Meena. “Coverage Denied: How the Current Health Insurance System
Leaves Millions Behind”. HealthReform.gov. 2010. 20 Nov. 2010.
.
Works Citied
ReplyDeleteBihari, Michael. “Pre Existing Conditions - Understanding Exclusions and Creditable
Coverage”. About.com Guide. 15 Apr. 2010. 20 Nov. 2010. http://healthinsurance.about.com/od/healthinsurancebasics/a/preexisting_conditi
ons_overview.htm.
Seltzer, Marc. “Pre-Existing Conditions and Health Care Reform”. Politicsunlocked.com.
1 Jul. 2009. 20 Nov. 2010. http://www.politicsunlocked.com/
index.php/article/pre_existing_conditions_and_health_care_reform/28034.
Seshamani, Meena. “Coverage Denied: How the Current Health Insurance System Leaves Millions Behind”. HealthReform.gov. 2010. 20 Nov. 2010.
http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html.
Everyone should have access to healthcare, but I do not agree that the government should provide it. Look at the social security program, for example. The government has used it for other things than which it was proposed. “Providing a right to health care is socialism and is bad for economic productivity. Socialized medicine is comparable to food stamps, housing subsidies, and welfare—all of which is charity. Distributing charity to society makes people lazy, decreases the incentive for people to strive for excellence, and inhibits productivity” (Should). If universal health care becomes mandated, additional taxes will be imposed on the working class, while the government decides on your treatment, and the elderly will be the hardest hit.
ReplyDelete“In socialized medical systems the population is insured through public funds obtained through an income tax and a value added tax” (Battista) which is a “tax on the estimated market value added to a product or material at each stage of its production or distribution passed on to the consumer’ (answers.com). The government owns the health care facilities. Hospitals operate on a global budget, and there is no billing for services. As usual, we the consumer end up paying the majority of the tax. The tax is passed on to us for the services we receive and then we are expected to pay income tax on it. The government will implement a cost effectiveness measure.
President Obama proposed a new organization in his stimulus bill called The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology to create federally digitized medical records. This organization “will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. You know, right now a lot of you get all upset at your insurance company because they say, “Certain things will be covered and others will not,” and you want it to be left up to the doctor. Try the government being in charge of what the doctor can do, of treatments that can be extended to you. The goal of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology is to reduce costs and guide your doctor’s decisions. The elderly get shafted in this” (Limbaugh).
The stimulus bill calls for a Federal Council that changes the way in which treatment is considered necessary. “The Federal Council is modeled after the U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis. For instance, a U.K. board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. Daschle says in his book that seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them” (McCaughey).
ReplyDeleteEveryone should have healthcare, but not at the expense of others. I sure do not want the government telling my doctor what treatments they deem necessary for me. Who are they to tell my grandmother she cannot get treatment for an illness because she is too old? I will make it my duty to teach others about this healthcare and the effects it has on everyone. My knowledge will affect my vote for people who simply want what is right for people, not just something that will pad their pockets. Check out healthcare reform before falling hook-line-sinker.
Works Cited
Answers.com. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. .
Bapttista, John R. "An International Perspective on Health Care Reform." Health Care. 29 Jan. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. .
Limbaugh, Rush. "The March to Socialized Medicine Starts in Obama's Porkulus-Bill." 9 Feb. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. .
McCaughey, Betsy. "Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan." Bloomberg, 9 Feb. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. .
"Should All Americans have the right (be entitled) to health care?" Procon.org, Web. 21 Nov. 2010. .
I agree that we should have a basic health coverage for all Americans young and old. Medicare is the nations largest health insurance program that corvers millions of Americans over the age of 65 and some disabled people under the age of 65.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we have to wait till we are 65 to get medicare? With todays economy many people avoid going to the doctor because not many Americans have insurance that can cover hospital bills. Over 45 million Americans including over 8 million children lack health insurance. If we had a healthcare or medicare that could help pay for some medicines and the doctors visits, this society would be functioning in a much more healthy way.
President Obama has a plan to provide affordable, asecsible Health care to all. President obama's plan stregthens employer based coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without goverment interference. Under this plan if you choose to keep your health insurance that you have, nothing changes except the costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. For those who dont have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Works cited
"Barack Obama & Joe Biden's Plan to Lower healthcare costsand ensure affordable, accessible healthcoverage for all". <http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthcareFullPlan.pdf
"Medicare". Wikipedia. <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/medicare_United_States
Merlis, Mark. "The Value of Extra Benefits Offered by Medicare Advantage Plans in 2006". Kaiser Family Foundation, January 2008.
1. I believe everyone has a right to health care.
ReplyDelete2. Barack Obama, JD, US President, US Senator (D-IL) and presidential candidate at the time of the quotation, stated during the Oct. 7, 2008 presidential debate in Nashville, TN, moderated by Tom Brokaw of NBC News:
"...I think it [health care] should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that."
The United Methodist Church (UMC), wrote on the page titled "Right to Health Care" on its website www.umg.org (accessed Mar. 25, 2010):
"Health care is a basic human right. Providing the care needed to maintain health, prevent disease, and restore health after injury or illness is a responsibility each person owes others and government owes to all, a responsibility government ignores at its peril. In Ezekiel 34:4a, God points out the failures of the leadership of Israel to care for the weak: 'You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured.' As a result all suffer... The right to health care includes care for persons with brain diseases, neurological conditions, or physical disabilities, who must be afforded the same access to health care as all other persons in our communities. It is unjust to construct or perpetuate barriers to physical or mental wholeness or full participation in community.
We believe it is a governmental responsibility to provide all citizens with health care."
American Medical Student Association (AMSA), wrote in their educational resource "The Case for Universal Healthcare" provided on www.amsa.org (accessed Aug. 27, 2009):
"In a time when thousands of people lose their health insurance every day, when health care is becoming elusive to even well-to-do Americans, and when any person is just one pink slip away from becoming uninsured, it becomes clear that health care for all is not just important to achieve, but imperative.
At its root, the lack of health care for all in America is fundamentally a moral issue. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have some form of universal health care (defined as a basic guarantee of health care to all of its citizens). While other countries have declared health care to be a basic right, the United States treats health care as a privilege, only available to those who can afford it...
Americans purport to believe in equal opportunity. Yet, in the current situation, those who do not have health care are at risk for financial ruin and poorer health, both of which disadvantage them in society and thereby do not give them equal opportunity...
The Declaration of Independence states there are certain 'inalienable rights', including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If Americans believe in an inalienable right to life, how can we tolerate a system that denies people lifesaving medications and treatments? Similarly, if Americans believe in an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, how can we allow millions of dreams to be smashed by the financial and physical consequences of uninsurance?"
3. I can afford health insurance now.
By Alice Carter
ReplyDeleteI agree that our system has problem. Health care reform is just one step closer to socialism. Socicalism a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of productionand distribution(dictionary).Socialism brings misery and destruction to those who are forced to live under it. Where there is no medical freedon, there is no quality only compliance(procon). Ideal with this first hand through the government medcaid program, I have two disable children and it like jumping through hoop to get service and equipnment they need. It took me a year and a half to get some equipment my youngest needed. Medcaid would not pay for it because he did not fit in their little box. The groverment is not doctors they don't know what I need. The health care reform is just painted up socialism. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith christ hath made us free,and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage(Bible).
Works Cited
"dictionary"Socialism Nov.23, 2010
http://www.dictioary.com/socialism
"ProCon"The Good of the State Nov. 22, 2010
http://www.procon.org
Thompson, Frank The thompson Chain-Reference Bible, Galatian 5:1 Indianpolis:Kirkbride Bible co.2005
TC Williams
ReplyDeleteFor Dr. Sundra Girard
English Grammar and Comp #2
November 23, 2010
Healthcare is needed in America
I agree that a universal healthcare program will be beneficial for all US citizens. It will cut down on the discrimination of who should be treated with advanced medical care, and not on the status or economic state of the person. However, I agree that this coverage should be afforded to US citizen first, and that some guidelines and stipulations should be given to those who are not US citizen, especially if this program will be federally funded or increase the taxes of the citizens who are already burdened by high taxes, and poor coverage. This type of healthcare system has been successful in other European countries, especially Germany and Belgium for decades. It provided for a sense of stability for the employee and employer, and increased productivity. When employees know that they can obtain quality health care when they need it, and it is affordable or covered by their employer, they will not seek other employment based on the type of healthcare insurance coverage. This will also insure employers will have a steady workforce of dependable and healthy employees.
The United States is the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of the citizens. The
United States spends more as a share of its economy on health care than any other nation, yet all this spending has failed to buy Americans health security. Jacob Hacker's Health Care for America plan would extend coverage to all Americans while creating an effective framework for controlling medical costs and improving health care provision. This healthcare system or program that President Obama supports will provide better care, lower costs, more choice, healthier citizens, and immensely stronger guarantees for workers and their families. It promises real savings for employers and state governments, without affecting existing sources of health security, without forcing workers to obtain coverage on their own, and without pressuring patients into Health Savings Accounts or tightly managed health maintenance organizations (HMOs). If one word captures the essence of Health Care for America, it is "guaranteed." Health Care for America would guarantee coverage; it would guarantee a generous package of benefits; it would guarantee greater choice; and it would guarantee real savings and improved quality.
Work Cited
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp180.html by Jacob S. Hacker
www.sharedprosperity.org/topics-healt...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
Works Cited
ReplyDelete“Right to Health Care”. United Methodist Church. 25 Mar. 2010. http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=5066539&ct=6467671.
Sweet, Lynn. “Barack Obama John McCain debate.” Chicago Sun-Times. 7 Oct. 2008. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/10/barack_obama_john_mccain_debat_1.html.
“The Case for Universal Healthcare”. American Medical Student Association. 27 Aug. 2009.
http://www.amsa.org
I think all Americans should have access to some type of health care. However, I'm not sure if the universal health coverage will be the best option. Universal health coverage keeps everyone on the same level, however, not every family is the same. There are different job categories, pay scales and a diversity of family situations. Insurance benefits can be offered based on each category with a fee based on the current family income. This will keep a healthy proportion from the poor to the wealthy.
ReplyDeleteAll children up to certain age should be covered, this can give parents and single parent homes the peace of mind knowing that if a child is sick, they can take them to the doctor without prejudice.
It will be beneficial to have insurance benefits available in stages. This means that if you are in a transition period, you should not have to worry about going without necessary health care. I am a single parent and although I am offered insurance benefits at work, I can not afford to pay for my dependents. Consequently, I have been able to obtain the same benefits for my kids using the state offered benefits. I still pay a portion, but it is much more affordable this way. This keeps us all covered, with a minimum out of pocket expense. If everyone was willing to pay a portion based on their own unique situation, than all can have access to health care.
There are many people in the US that are actually eligible for health care, however, because of the lack of knowledge, they are unable to take advantage of it.
Currently there are insurance programs for the elderly, handicapped, children, military, retired military and the poor.(Comparison) This leaves the middle-class, the wealthy and those that work part-time to obtain and pay for some type of private health insurance. The wealthy can probably afford their health care, and those that have full-time jobs where the benefits include the health insurance can take advantage of the health care coverage. It's those that are in a transition or forced into situations that may of be no fault of theirs that need to be exposed to "universal health care". The definition of universal health care can be defined in a way to attract each American knowing that the end goal is to have insurance benefits from the newborn to the elderly without prejudice or intimidation.
James 2:1-13 reveals that we are to treat others equally, if we can incorporate this into a universal health care system, it will be equal.
Works cited:
The Nelson Study Bible. New King James.
"Comparison of Health Care Systems." .
"The Case for Single Payer Healthcare." .
The last anonymous comment was from Susan Maxwell. I have been having a lot of trouble posting to this blog. It is telling me that my URL address is too large? It only let me post under anonymous. I don't know how to correct this. If you do, please send me an email. slmaxwell246@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Also, when I tried to do my works cited page, it deletes the whole address.
ReplyDeleteJarian Basden
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that we should have universal healthcare in the united States. I believe that many seniors citizens and those who have jobs are not financial able to afford insurance. it's tough enough as it is for some to pay all of there bills for the month. There are people who are probably walking around with sickness and or disease, but because they do not have insurance, they may opt not to see a doctor because of the cost. But if they are not feeling well and they go to the doctor, they may catch something in it's early stage. I know we would have to pay for this, but many people can not even make ends meet at the end of the month.