Healthcare Reform

Healthcare Reform
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Healthcare Reform
Over the years, healthcare reform in the United States (US) has been under scrutiny, receiving huge attention from the public. Warner, et al. (2020) reveal that the rising costs of healthcare, coupled with the high economic burden that payers, patients, and employers have been experiencing has contributed greatly to the debate on healthcare reforms. Also, the quality of care as well as the accessibility of care have been an area of concern for decades and have necessitated healthcare reform. This paper aims to explore healthcare reform in the US in terms of its nature over the years, the elements, and the strategies of healthcare reform.
The Nature of Healthcare Reform in the US
For many decades, healthcare reform in the US has taken many versions and it was not until 2010 that the country had its first-ever comprehensive healthcare reform. Healthcare reform in the US has mostly been directed towards universal healthcare coverage although none has been successful so far. Any reform on healthcare has been characterized by failure and most of the time, it has failed during conceptualization. The first-ever efforts focused on achieving universal health coverage were in 1912 by Theodore Roosevelt and his party (Manchikanti, Helm, Benyamin, & Hirsch, 2017). The party endorsed social insurance and health insurance as part of their proposal. However, this was never achieved. A similar proposal was provided by President Harry Truman but it was never passed. President Franklin Roosevelt also made attempts to include healthcare reform in the Social Security Act but in the end, this never supported access to publicly-funded healthcare. Manchikanti, Helm, Benyamin, and Hirsch (2017) reveal that these failures were mostly due to opposition from organized medicine. Organized medicine was against the idea of universal coverage because they believed that patients deserve the freedom to choose their physician, physicians also have a right to “diagnose, treat, and charge as they saw fit (Gorsky & Sirrs, 2018).” Despite such opposition, President Lyndon Johnson changed the US health coverage by signing Medicare and Medicaid into law in 1965. Another significant change in US healthcare reform was in 2010 after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by President Barrack Obama. While the ACA did not provide universal health coverage, it increased health insurance coverage for many Americans who were previously uninsured (Manchikanti, Helm, Benyamin, & Hirsch, 2017). The ACA is currently what Americans are using in accessing healthcare, although it has faced great opposition from Republicans after President Trump joined office. For instance, the ACA would have been partially repealed by the American Health Care Act of 2017 (Manchikanti, Helm, Benyamin, & Hirsch, 2017), but the Senate did not pass this into law. More than 100 years since the first attempt towards universal health coverage, the US is still struggling with its healthcare reform. The past and present of healthcare reforms are characterized by huge opposition by major stakeholders, making it difficult to have the right healthcare system that serves all Americans.
Elements of Healthcare Reform
Healthcare reform has many characteristics. However, quality improvement and cost control are the two major elements that are needed in healthcare reforms. It is crucial to have a healthcare system that constantly improves the quality of care. Yet, the American healthcare system, especially before the passing of the ACA, failed to deliver high quality of care. Often, patients’ safety was not facilitated and there was poor coordination of care (Obama, 2016). Besides, the costs of care were too high yet this did not reflect on the outcomes of the patients. According to Obama (2016), high costs of healthcare not only affect the economy but also the financial state of all Americans. What would be the value of healthcare services if they were provided in the poorest of quality and the highest of costs? Enhancing the quality of care and controlling the costs of care has been a goal not only in the US but also in a global capacity. According to McDonough (2014), most of the efforts on healthcare reform in the US have been directed at controlling costs and improving the quality of care. Improving the quality of care is essential in promoting patient safety and timeliness in the delivery of care. The need for improved...