The Concept of Health Insurance - Essay Example

"The Concept of Health Insurance" is a controversial example of a paper on the health system.

The concept of health insurance plays a very pivotal role in American society and most of the medical facilities are provided at either free of cost or the most minimal cost. The Preventive and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was conceptualized in 2009 but came into complete acceptance in 2010, under President Obama’s leadership. The ACA mandated that the preventive health services are uniformly made available to the public and it also included that more essential medical facilities be included at a minimal cost. It conceived the notion that all evidence-based preventive services and wellness options should be provided and included in the normal health insurance plans as offered by insurance giants like Medicare and Medicaid. 

The ACA mandate ensures that certain definite preventive care services and medical items are provided to patients without them having to share the cost of these. The biggest challenges that the ACA faced were penetrating the already existing health care systems and the legal issues involved in health care. (Jacobs & Skocpol, 2010) 

Public health and healthcare are two prominently different concepts and practices. Healthcare ideally includes organizing, financing, and delivering healthcare services to an individual on a need basis. It caters to more of the curing aspect of health rather than providing preventive measures. 

Public health on the other hand involves health services catering to the threats or needs of a complete society on the whole. It is more focused on the integral health and well being of the society rather than an individual. ACA has wiped out these differences, stating that society needs uniform medical service and not be segmented. 

The other battle the ACA has is with the legal framework and various protocols that exist within the system making the medical services not easily available to the general public. The legalities of the system have often been an obstruction between accessing medical services and being able to benefit from them. The ACA mandate has been able to overcome these issues, by including the preventive health services in most of the health care policies. (Cogan, 2011) 

Crucial viewpoints: 

The Affordable Care Act is considered to be a breakthrough in the national health reform movement. ACA has successfully promoted preventive medicine and services rather than the curative method, thereby bridging the gap between public health and healthcare. It has proven that the preventive measures are more effective and when provided on a uniform basis at a national level, helped to reduce the medical costs and also improved health on a larger scale. 

These in turn have a direct impact on the entire medical domain and adverse possibilities have come into the debate. There are possibilities that with increased services, the physicians may get overburdened, and that in turn might affect the quality of work. The increase in services and no cost to be borne by the patient may lead to economical imbalance within the medical community. There could be pay reductions, cost-cutting, compromise on quality, etc. which in turn will affect the society on the whole.  

The ACA mandate could have a direct impact on society with the number of uninsured people decreasing to a certain extent. It could also have an impact on the national revenue since the cost of the preventive care services would be borne by the Government, thereby; there would be a steep increase in the revenue spent on national health. 

Thus, it can be concluded that the ACA mandate can usher in positive outcomes with a probability of some shortfalls which if handled early and quickly, can be turned around.