Increasing Cost Of Being Uninsured

The healthcare industry is in the midst of a major change from paper based medical record keeping to electronic medical record keeping. As part of the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was passed (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2014). HITECH is the U.S. Government’s first major contribution to the change from paper to electronic health information technology by setting meaningful use incentive program for Medicare and Medicaid providers that met certain requirements. Healthcare professionals that meet the meaningful use criteria will be awarded financially, and those that don’t meet the 2015 guideline will be penalized. We live in an electronic world of instant access to information and by adopting health information technology we give providers better and easier access to more information which in turn allows them to make a more informed diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient. The electronic health record (EHR) is part of the new information technology. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (2014.), EHR’s provide many benefits such as improvement in the quality of patient care; improvement in the coordination of patient care; more accurate diagnosis and better outcomes; a higher level of patient participation in their own care; and cost savings for the practice

Rising health insurance premiums have made healthcare unaffordable in the United States. Health insurance premiums in this country have undergone a steady rise over the past few years while incomes have remained the same. More than 50% of individuals with low incomes holding private insurance in the United States are unable to afford their healthcare costs (Collins, Gunja, Doty & Buetel, 2015). In addition, costs related to healthcare are equally unaffordable to 25% of working-age individuals who hold private health insurance policies (Collins et al., 2015). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust (Kaiser/HRET) survey on employer health benefits, employer-sponsored health insurance plans have also had moderate rises in premiums in 2013 for both individuals and family coverage (Claxton et al., 2013). While

One reason that is frequently cited when asking the question of why so many people in the U.S. don’t have coverage is the cost. Many populations, in particular minorities, low-income, and women cannot afford health insurance or are underinsured thus putting them at a higher risk for disease, disability and death. In the U.S in 2010, there were 50 million people uninsured (Patel & Rushefsky, 2014). Private insurance companies have denied coverage to people with preexisting conditions (as seen in the Sick Around America video) and even pregnant women, this practice illustrates the inequality and inequity issues that have permeated the health care system. The Affordable Care Act sought to remedy the issues related to health insurance coverage being accessible for all Americans but there still exists many people without

Electronic Medical Records & Access, this gives the ability to have past records of patients for long term and easily access from any place whereas paper based document and can be loss or not able to get it when it’s needed. Ensuring that the EHR is as adopted as other clinical applications can greatly impact the patient experience, including; patient registration, records management, and information infrastructure systems. As Roham et al points out, many healthcare providers are still in early staging of implementing an EHR and if not completely installed can have a negative impact on patient satisfaction metrics(2014, p. 134)11.

Quality, safety, and efficiency are essential attributes that healthcare workers must be able to perform to ensure their patient receives necessary care and treatment. “Implementations of potentially transformative eHealth technologies are currently underway internationally, often with significant impact on national expenditure. England has, for example, invested at least £12.8 billion in a National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) for the National Health Service, and the Obama administration in the United States (US) has similarly committed to a US $38 billion eHealth investment in health care. Such large-scale expenditure has been justified on the grounds that electronic health records (EHRs), picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), electronic pre-scribing (ePrescribing) and associated computerised provider (or physician) order entry systems (CPOE), and

With the rising number of uninsured Americans, health care has been a major issue in the United States. Due to “The Great Recession” and the growing number of Americans who found themselves unemployed, the number of uninsured Americans has rose from 46.6 million in 2005 to a record number of 50.7 million in 2010. Many of these uninsured again have lost their employee health insurance benefits or they made the decision to cut their health insurance just to cut back costs. The rising prices of health care have also been a concern over the last few years. With new medical technology and increasing prices of prescription drugs, it has become hard for one particular group to keep up. Our

We live in the United States, “The Land of the Brave and Home of the Free.” However, the United States is the only developed country that does not provide guaranteed insurance coverage for all citizens and they’re thereby doing not ensure access to health services (Government hub, n.d.). Meaning other countries offer health coverage without cost. This always disappointed me because America is the richest, and most unequal, country (Sherman, 2015). So why wouldn’t America provide American’s health care insurance (McAlearney, 2003, p. 20). Since the United States does not provide universal health care coverage, we will discuss briefly forms of insurance offered to Americans, the categories of insurance and how individuals qualify for coverage and Affordable Healthcare Act (Obama Care).

The rising cost of health care has led companies to stop offering health insurance for employees, and private insurance is often too expensive for people to afford. Many families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but are unable to pay for private health insurance. Health care costs in the United States have more than doubled in the last twenty years. Insurance premiums are rising five times faster than wages, and Americans are spending more money on health care than people in any other country. The average amount one person pays per year for health care in the United States is 134 times higher than the average of other industrialized countries (“Health Care Issues”). Even people who have insurance aren’t guaranteed coverage. Many insurance companies find loopholes to avoid paying for expensive medical treatment, leaving people with massive debt from medical bills. Medical bills and illness cause over half of all personal bankruptcies in the United

The United States’ high uninsured rate had negative consequences for uninsured Americans, who experienced greater financial insecurity, barriers to care, and odds of poor health and preventable death; for the health care system, which was burdened with billions of dollars in uncompensated care; and for the US economy, which suffered, for example, because workers were concerned about joining the ranks of the uninsured if they sought additional education or started a business.11- 16 Beyond these statistics were the countless, heartbreaking stories of Americans who struggled to access care because of a broken health insurance system. These included people like Natoma Canfield, who had overcome cancer once but had to discontinue her coverage due to rapidly escalating premiums and found herself facing a new cancer diagnosis

The cost of healthcare in America is out of control. As the medical costs continue to rise, many Americans, especially those considered low income, have decided to just live uninsured. Low income families are considered individuals, who make less than $15,521 a year and families of 4 members, who make $31,721 or less in a year (2). As of 2013, 10.8 million were listened as low income households in America, which is a 18.6% rise from the previous survey (2). Basically, these families can not afford to pay for private medical insurance. As a matter of fact, there are 70 million people covered under the federal Medicare and

Over two-thirds (68%) of the low- to middle-income uninsured are not confident that they can pay for the health care services they think they need (8). The impact of these workers lacking insurance also bleeds into their social and personal lives, as well as their mental health. Over a quarter (24%) of low and middle income uninsured adults said worry about medical costs affected their job performance, family relationships, or ability to sleep (7).

Though the cost of the healthcare system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, there is a large percentage of Americans that have no health insurance. Healthcare is the country’s largest economic division, larger than the national defense. Although, millions of people cannot afford to take care of their health needs. Insurance premiums have almost doubled in the last eight years, making health insurance for millions out of their grasp. Growing medical bills are continuously leaving families in debt.

The United States healthcare system is one of the most expensive systems in the world with 16% of its gross domestic product (GDP) assigned to it, it is expected that this spending may increase up 20% of the US GDP by 2016.1 Unfortunately, despite the large amount of money delegated to this system there are still widening gap in health disparities existing in the US, based on geographical areas, race/ethnic groups or class.2 Other factors such as genetics, social circumstances, environmental exposures, behavioral patterns, and lopsided access to opportunities encourage such disparities.1,3 The number of people that do not have access to healthcare in the US is alarming, for instance in 2005 about 40 million Americans did not receive healthcare services because of their inability to purchase health insurance policy and/or pay out of pocket.1

Access to preventive health care should not be definable as one of life’s luxuries, yet that is what is has come to be for the approximately “50 million Americans” who have no health insurance (Turka & Caplan, 2010). Clogged emergency rooms and “preventable deaths” are just two of the consequences associated with the lack of health insurance that would provide access to preventive care (Turka & Caplan, 2010). We as a nation are depriving our citizens of one of our most basic needs—being healthy.

Health is the greatest gift and wealth that a person can have, but unfortunately, we get sick. When a person gets ill he goes to see his doctor to be cured. It is easy when the insurance covers the treatment cost but not everyone has health insurance. Doctor visits may be expensive for the uninsured patients. In the US, there are approximately 47 million of Americans are uninsured. It is troubling to think that a wealthy country like the United States has so many uninsured people. Michael Moore in his movie “Socko” shows America's disastrous health care system heading into economic collapse. The US healthcare system in dysfunctional. Many people are suffering the consequences of this dysfunctional system.