There has been much said in the news and in political debate lately about the state of medical care in the United States and the need to find ways to reduce everyone's health care cost. This is really only the latest chapter in an ongoing conversation on the topic of health care costs in this country, with the earliest calls for reform coming in the early 1900's.
Healthcare reform was a major component of the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, where the issue was dropped as World War I became a more pressing problem. Health care reform was not visited again until 1944, when it was again put off to deal with another World War.
Thus has been the story of healthcare reform bills, they seem to be incredibly badly timed to coincide with wars and other national crises, and therefore are abandoned until much later. In the meantime, the problems and issues surrounding the healthcare debate in this country continue to grow and fester until it is now one of the most immediate issues calling to be dealt with by legislators.
The current debate over healthcare reform in the United States is complex, with myriad factors weighing in, including immigrants, illegal and otherwise, the large population of individuals over 65 verses the relatively smaller younger population, and ways to reduce their health care cost, to name a few. Some of the primary questions that lawmakers are debating include the following:
* Should healthcare be considered a fundamental right, or a privilege?
* Who should have access to healthcare and under what circumstances?
* Who should be required to contribute toward the costs of providing healthcare?
* Should the government support healthcare commerce by requiring citizens to buy insurance or pay taxes?
* Does the money spent of healthcare justify the quality of healthcare that is being received?
* How to deal with each health care cost that has been rising faster than the level of general inflation and the growth in the economy?
It is interesting to note that last year, a year that saw a dramatic increase in bankruptcies, 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the United States were stated as being due to medical costs. Medical impoverishment is almost unheard of in developed countries outside of the US. The United States spends a greater portion of total yearly income on healthcare than almost any
United Nations member, despite the fact that the actual use of healthcare services in the U.S. is decidedly below the average among developed countries.
The Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academies, admitted that the United States is the "only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage".
Americans are divided along party lines in their views regarding the role of government in the health economy.
Recent reform efforts under President Barack Obama, although still strongly contested, have culminated the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known as the "Senate bill"), which became law on March 23, 2010, and was shortly thereafter amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 which became law on March 30.
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