Health Care Financial Problem, Research Paper Example

Health care insurance is a significant health care financial problem that is affecting most people today especially the uninsured. The people who are unable to access health care insurance are at a potential risk of being denied, forgo or even have a delayed preventive care which is a possible cause of premature deaths. At the time of seeking health care services at emergency rooms in health care facilities, the charges expected from the uninsured are usually high as compared to the insured. In most cases, the uninsured are not able to meet the costs reflected in medical bills that they incur (Grier, 2010).  The option left to the health care facilities management is to transfer the costs to the insured people through increasing their premiums.

The working solution to this problem has been thought to be the introduction of health reform in health care. Through this reform, health insurance has been made accessible to the uninsured. The implementation of health reform is thought to be a potential solution to many financial problems associated with health care including reduction of overall debts to the institutions and an improved accessibility for health care services for all. Some pre-existing conditions among health care seekers have hindered access to essential benefits of health care even with health care insurance (Breen, 2002).

The effectiveness of health reform in improving health care for all would be measured by indiscriminate service delivery of health care without discrimination against age, income, as well as race which are among the notable indicators of pre-existing conditions (Standing, 2000).  Another important tool in measuring effectiveness of this initiative is the level of equity, effectiveness as well as efficiency of health care sector in health care delivery in a situation of limited government resources coupled with drastic technological as well as demographic changes.

References

Breen, N. (2002). Social discrimination and health: gender, race, and class in the United States. Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 347–371.

Grier, P., (2010). “Health care reform bill 101: Who must buy insurance?” The Christian Science Monitor.

Standing, H., (2000). Gender impacts of health reforms – the current state of policy & implementation. Paper for ALAMES meeting, Havana, Cuba.