Health Care Reform - Research Paper Example

The contention was supported by authors Siegel, Mead and Burke (2008) who revealed an analogous argument in the rising costs of health care services coupled with the increasing number of Americans who are uninsured. B. Reality of Health Care in the US The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) emphasized that “some 47 million U.S. residents have no health insurance, and the numbers keep growing” (AFL-CIO, 2011). In view of this, the current administration has enacted the Affordable Care Act that envisions implementing “comprehensive health insurance reforms that will hold insurance companies more accountable, lower health care costs, guarantee more health care choices, and enhance the quality of health care for all American” (USDHHS: Health Care, n.d,). C. . rage through the following strategies, to wit: “(1) sets up a new competitive private health insurance market; (2) holds insurance companies accountable; and (3) puts our budget and economy on a more stable path” (USDHHS: Health Care, n.d., pars. 6 to 8). Section 2: The History and the Evolution of the Issue in Health Care The major issues in health care that significantly traced its historical evolution are sourced from The Henry J.

Kaiser Family of Foundation (2011) and enumerated herewith, as follows: 1965 President Lyndon Johnson Lyndon enacted legislation which introduced Medicare covering both hospital and general medical insurance for senior citizens paid for by a Federal employment tax over the working life of the retiree, and Medicaid permitted the Federal government to partially fund a program for the poor, with the program managed and co-financed by the individual states. 1985 The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) amended the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to give some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment.

1997 The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, was established by the federal government in 1997 to provide health insurance to children in families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. 2010 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Patient Protection is enacted by President Barack Obama providing for the phased introduction over four years of a comprehensive system of mandated health insurance with reforms designed to eliminate "some of the worst practices of the insurance companies" — pre-condition screening and premium loadings, policy rescinds on technicalities when illness seems imminent, lifetime and annual