Public Financed Health Insurance Policies - Book Report/Review Example

The hypothesis which forms the basis of this study is "PRIVATELY SPONSORED COMMUNITY EFFORTS ARE MORE ACTIVE THAN PUBLIC FINANCED PROGRAMS IN PROVIDING HEALTH INSURANCE TO THE UNINSURED POPULATION". The purpose of the study is to provide the people with a more coordinated and organized health care program and to analyze the Government policies regarding the issue. The article basically has raised a very critical question which is vital in the building of a socially civilized culture. The study has though been not utilized as it should have been for the social welfare of the deprived subjects. It only emphasizes on the monetary concerns of the Government i.e. increases in the Federal Funds directed towards the Government (public) financed health insurance programs. The study has used a theoretical model which has the capability of accepting multiple inputs, and analyzing them against multiple criteria. Lacking a quantitative model makes it less authentic for the study to be considered useful. The multiple criteria matching and analysis gives the study an effective tool for analyzing the subjects. The research was not based on a particular design rather the data and figures were utilized by employing secondary research techniques extracting the statistics from already available data sources. The analysis comes from the Community Tracking Study (CTS), carried out every two years or so. The methodology also includes depth interviews with more than 1,000 health care leaders from a wide range of organizations across twelve randomly selected markets: Boston, Cleveland, Greenville (South Carolina),Indianapolis, Lansing, Little Rock, Miami, northern New Jersey, Orange County (California),Phoenix, Seattle, and Syracuse. This was a right measure taken to avoid any redundant costs in terms of time and effort; after all there is no use of reinventing the wheel. This might still prove to be a wrong approach considering the fact that most of the figures available in the secondary data resources were found during a similar study conducted 2 years ago. This will make the data obsolete and hence will yield under-casted figures thus making any previous conclusion derived from the data as misleading. A second fact to be considered is that most of the times a study that seems to have a similar subject and/or objective are actually not even related to the objective of the study for which we are referring to them. The terminologies used and assumptions taken, the definition employed for certain words might be totally different in both the studies. The questions that were framed in the previous study (the one which we are referring to) might have a totally different direction and structure. Therefore significant regard should have been given in stating the assumptions regarding the sources for data gathering and the integrity of the data being utilized should be explicitly stated. For the purpose of this study more than 150 respondents were interviewed, including community program administrators and others who could provide a perspective on the subject of our study such as representatives from hospitals and health systems, state and local Government entities and other organizations. Although the twelve CTS sites, considered for the study, were representative of most of the large U.S. communities, the strategies described in this research paper do not necessarily cover all possible approaches and may or may not be considered as true representative of similar approaches being practiced elsewhere. The families who don't even have the insurance covered by the employer are in deep trouble and have still not been given the level of explicit importance as much as the issue really deserved to be. Though the State Governments do provide publicly subsidized medical insurance coverage, the qualification for it is very subjective with respect to each State Government. This measure can be challenged on the basis of its concreteness. The reason behind this is that most of the states have been practicing different criteria for characterizing a low income family. For example, more than half of the states have lower income boundary of $ 9780 per annum, above which the family cannot avail the subsidized coverage. In other states it is much lower, $3048 per annum in Louisiana, for example. The lack of a standard scale for measuring the lower income families with having different conditions for a family to qualify for a subsidized medical insurance coverage adds significant bias to the findings resulting from the study. As per the research, the most effective way of providing health care to the uninsured families is by community health centers and free clinics. In eight sites the strategies identified were developed at the local level to provide broker access (centrally administered health care programs) or coverage. These strategies can be categorized into four different (general) types; Managed care safety-net programs Donated care models Discounted care models Limited-benefit coverage The first three types are examples of brokered-access strategies, while the fourth one represents a coverage strategy. 'Managed care' attempts to manage the patients by promoting preventive measures, and prescription to drugs. However, these types of activities have recently been loosing continuity and no new steps are being taken. 'Donated care' models are administered mostly by the local community medical organizations, which try to invite the maximum possible number of physicians to provide their medical services free of charge, also known as 'free clinics'. This model is also subjective to number of physicians that are willing to participate in such programs, since most of the renowned physicians are actually businessman, merely making their own fortunes and least bothered about such community welfare activities. To overcome the greed of the physicians some variations have been recently accommodated in the 'Donated care' model and a new model has been introduced i.e. 'discounted care' model. This approach is relatively more effective since it provides health care to the US families at a special discount rate. These type of activities are normally organized by some private organization and /or administered by non-profit making organizations. This attempt is to maximize the number of participation of the most expert physicians so as to provide quality health car eservices to masses. 'Limited-benefit' coverage is actually the health care partially covered by the employers. The basic analysis of the data gathered can be said as authentic due to the fact that it was collected from State Government Authorities. This however, doesn't certifies that the study was conducted efficiently and nor should it be thought of as an effective one. There are a number of reasons why this study can be challenged, several factors that attribute to the weakness of the study. For example, the researchers didn't use a systematic method for conducting the research study. What they did can be termed as data gathering and classification which is only a single part/component of a comprehensive research. They should rather have done it in a scientific manner going through all the steps of problem analysis, designing the research, evaluation of alternatives and implementing the final methodology of study to be conducted. Another point to be considered is that researchers relied on only on few selected sources with the data stated in a certain specific structure. This obviously impacts the findings as the results become biased. The researcher should have considered a number of sources with conflicting views regarding the subject to have a better analysis of both the sides of the study objective. Thirdly, the computational limits of outranking methods stem from the fact that all possible pairs of alternatives have to be compared along each recognized criterion; a measure that seems to have been ignored while quantifying and analyzing the data. The study can have dramatic effects on the State Health Policy. The authorities can even question the integrity of the research study before making any amendments to the health funds for the public welfare organizations. The study also involves the Federal Government concern and has an impact on its Health Policy. One of the major problems in US regarding public health is the imbalance of social investments in medical care compared with prevention activities. Read More