Health Care Finance - Essay Example

"Health Care Finance" is an outstanding example of a paper on the health system.
Health care finance has always been a serious concern and therefore the way health care services are financed play a very vital role in shaping the economic health of a country. The way health care is financed also determines what kind of treatment would be made available to patients concerned. The two most essential aspects of health care finance include how health care services would be funded and the mechanisms that would be in place to compensate for the health care providers.

The health care spending in America accounted for 15.2% of its gross domestic product in 2008, which was the highest amount spent by any country in the world. The bulk of Americans use insurance as a method to finance their health care costs. To give a rough estimate, roughly 85% of Americans have a medical insurance policy. Most of these programs are either purchased by the individual themselves or funded by the government or their employers.

In cases where the employer pays for the health insurance of an employee, the employee is also often asked to make a contribution towards it. Moreover, it is the employer’s job to arrange for an insurance company in this case. However, there are few unlucky American people who are unable to qualify for a health care insurance program funded by the government. In such a case, these people often remain without health insurance and end up paying a lot of money to medical providers when they need their services on an as-is basis.

There are several reasons why health care funding is a critical issue. First of all, because people want to secure themselves against the uncertain costs that they may have to bear when they fall ill. Secondly, and more importantly, because governments want to make sure that its citizens are provided proper access to health care facilities, and that they might not be held back owing to finance-related issues. That’s the prime reason why governments of many countries have made health care insurance mandatory upon its citizens.

However, the health care sector in the United States has witnessed many important changes in the past few years. In the past, there used to be no national health insurance plan for citizens of the country, and buying health insurance was not a must. There were many programs running side by side to ensure that the people were provided access to good health care. There were government-funded programs of the sort of Medicaid and Medicare, insurance coverage from insurance providers and insurance plans provided by employers (Paolucci, 2011). However, all of these programs had different rules and regulations attached to them.

However, the health care sector of America has witnessed a major change, thanks to ObamaCare, which was signed into law by the US president on 23rd March 2010. This act was introduced so as to provide people with a comprehensive insurance cover alongside restricting insurance providers from backing off from providing insurance cover when the insured falls ill. The act also makes sure that health care providers cannot say no to insuring people who face pre-developed medical conditions.