Health Care Law – Medicaid/Medicare and Private Insurances, Essay Example

Robert Herbold (2009) commenting on health care polices in America offered a global diagnosis under the caption, ‘Global Diagnosis: America’s Health Care Policies Are Sick’ with specific references to the Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance requirement for healthcare accessibility. This means that the government restricts accessibility to quality health care. It would appear that in the presence advanced health care services rationing of these resources through the policies of who gets to see which doctors or specialist based on their insurance coverage is disastrous. Medicare policy provision utilizing HMOs/PPO system restricts the elderly from choosing a physician. Uninsured pregnant women under Medicaid cannot choose an obstetrician (Centers for Medicaid and Medicare services, 2013).

The author cited where with these polices America has found itself being the 46^th nation in infant mortality and 45^th in life expectancy rating. The three top countries showing the best infant mortality rates are Singapore, 2.3 infant deaths 1,000; Sweden, 2.75 and Japan, 2.8. United States has an infant mortality rate of 6.3 per 1,000 births which is much higher than ‘Cuba, Portugal, Slovenia and Iceland’ (Herbold, 2009, p 1).

When citizens are not at the mercy of the state for quality health care everyone will have the same opportunity to access the quality care that is available. The elderly will live longer and maternal and child health definitely will be improved. Quality care is relative to quality insurance in America. Herbold (2009) continued to cite the healthcare system adapted in Singapore whereby citizens pay into a mandatory health care fund. Employers pay into this fund too. For unemployed citizens government subsidizes the payment. A Medishield program is established in cases of serious illnesses and payments from mandatory funds are deduced to provide excellent care for citizens. The advantage is that citizens have a choice of doctors and hospitals unlike the American policy. Citizens live longer and the country has the lowest infant mortality rate (Yu et.al, 2013)

References

Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2013). CMS Provides Health Coverage for 100 Million People. Retreieved on July 12^th from http://www.cms.gov/

Herbold, R. (2009). Global Diagnosis: America’s Health Care Policies Are Sick. Retrieved on July, 12^th, 2013 from

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/01/global_diagnosis_americas_health_care_policies_are_sick_96191.html

Yu, BAI, Chaoran, SHI, Xiaoteng, LI, ,& Feifei,LIU (2013). Healthcare System in Singapore. Retrieved on July 12^th, 2013 from http://ce.columbia.edu/files/ce/pdf/actu/actu-singapore.pdf