Health Care Services in the US - Assignment Example

1. What is the identified health care issue? The health care issue that is being identified is a social, economic, ethical and legal one. The issue more focused on in the article is that of an ethical and legal one. 2. Summarize the positive or negative affect the issue has had on the delivery of health care services in the US. The negatives, however, seem to weigh heavier. The privacy clauses that protect the criminals who are working with people doesn’t allow them to be notified of their record.

This can put others at risk and many are against the idea of letting criminal individuals work with the general public without notice. 3. Discuss how the issue improves or reduces cost, quality of access to health care services. The use of criminals for use in the Health Care system allows the Californian government to bring down the costs of the state government. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made a revelation that there was a twenty billion dollar budget deficient that needed to be cut down.

By using those individuals who are not being hired by any other employer then this service can be hired by the IHSS program at a lesser rate than any other. With the help of this, the budget for 2010-2011 will be able to go down to 5.2 billion dollars which will be very effective in bringing down the costs of the entire scheme and help to promote the service (ANDERSON, 2010). There can be a debate as to whether the health care system will benefit from this type of service. Having criminals take care of the elderly or other members of the community brings to mind serious questions regarding the safety of the public (Tim, 2010).

This lowers the quality of the service but access may be higher as more people who have a criminal record will more likely go to join the program as a means to make money. This will allow more personnel on the ground to be able to cater to the public.  4. What challenges and opportunities does the issue present?  The issue allows for more of a challenge than anything else. The potential harm that individuals are put into as a result of the allowance for offenders to work with them will increase.

There already have been cases where the previous offenders have shown signs and actions of relapse. There have been cases where the caregivers are being prosecuted for fraud, robbery and even identity theft (Blog, 2009). Behavior such as this shows that there are a large number of challenges that need to be overcome before the service is efficient and without fault. Opportunities are a lot less since there is a clear disdain for the court’s decision to allow convicts to work with elderly people.

Investigators and other concerned parties have cried to the legislators to do something about the current hiring system to lessen the number of criminals getting employed or to create stringent terms and conditions (Fowler, 2010). 5. Are there any potential trade-offs with this issue (ie. cost, quality, access, etc.) This system can certainly be allowed to work and may even benefit the state of California to improve the system of caring for the elderly. The issue needs to be looked at in terms of costs and benefits to see whether there are any trade-offs.

There is certainly a benefit if one looks at the access that people will get from the additional members on the ground. Again there is a lesser cost of having these people employed rather than others who have some experience and qualifications. Quality is definitely traded off when the state allows convicts in homes of the public. If allowing the elderly in the care of unsupervised convicts there is no surety that they will actually do their job right. Considering that there were 996 felons who applied for employment and only 210 were granted to work there is certainly a case against the service (Halper, 2010).

Security would certainly be a trade-off as people won’t be able to know that there are ex-convicts working in their homes who are to take care of them. Even the governor of California in September 2010 said that not being able to stop these people from getting access to homes is a safety crisis (Editor, 2010).