Introduction
Americans are finding it hard to reconcile the social justice notions with the fact that approximately 35 million people, most of whom are employees or dependents of some individuals who are employed lack basic medical insurance coverage. Government agencies, physicians, public and private medical sectors are finding it difficult or are straining to meet the high demand for medical care in the United States. People are not only losing their medical insurance covers, but vulnerable populations are expanding every day. The war against several health problems is challenged by poor access to health care. The health care problem has been rampant among children in low income families, elderly people, minority groups, refugees as well as rural areas’ residents. Certain diseases and health conditions like HIV and AIDS, cancer and infant mortality deaths are attributed to poor access of essential health services in a timely manner.
Although, medical insurance cover has been extremely significant in ensuring health for all members of the community people have continued to ignore as the access to medical care is becoming expensive every day. There have been increased insurance crisis in the United States making most people turn away from the facility. Mostly, in rural areas it has become an uphill task to keep medical facilities open as people have retracted from insurance covers. Initially people who were not covered by a medical insurance would benefit from emergency services if they were involved in one but that is not the case anymore. Hospitals have realized this trick and are out to sort it accordingly.
Policy makers have been concerned of the situation in the nation as it would continue getting worse with time if it is not taken care on time. In connection to this, extensive research has been conducted in relation to the problem where barriers that people face in search for medical care are analyzed and recorded accordingly. The barriers are analyzed on the basis of whether they can be solved and by what strategies.
Purpose
Health care in the United States have had extensive history with attachment to various political initiatives or programs. During any general election, the candidates have realized that health care in the country is a major problem and they have to touch on the issue in a direct manner. No one has ever failed to promise on governance where all citizens will have equal access to affordable health care. They have always succeeded in their convincing missions but the problem has remained rampant in the United States consuming the best portion of the American population. The research will not fail on the view that health care is really a political issue and needs be addressed with all due political analysis. The success of campaign for alienation of the problem needs be based on understanding of the right political procedure to the realization of the solution to the antisocial problem.
Therefore, the main purpose of this research paper is to conduct an extensive analysis of the history of the health care problem in the United States as well as the political influences that have made the situation remain unsorted up to date. This comes with informative audit of excellent articles that have been brought on the analysis of the history and political platform of the health care problem.
Since health care problem cannot be sorted on the basis of mere promises, the constitution of the United States must be extremely influential on the decisions that are made in the medical fraternity to ensure the society gains access to ample health care and all citizens are not segregated on the basis of their conditions as well as health status. It is at this point, that analysis of state and federal law will come in to show the efforts that the government is employing to ensure that the American society is safe and every individual has access to excellent medical care.
All problems underlying the activity must be addressed on their configuration whether they are political or economic. This will farther depend on the historical advancement of measures to solve the problem in the United States. At this point, the SB 22 Bill will be extremely essential as it is a major Bill in the development of a health care foundation in the United States. Laws usually play critical role in enhancing any problem that may occur in the community. Therefore, this case may be assured a solution if definite and reliable processes are enacted to ensure the high population of individuals in the United States lacking access to health care is saved from this problem.
The extent of health care in the United States
The United States is a world leading economy and it has paid extensive concern on the health care of its citizens. The government has been extremely keen on ensuring that all individuals in the country are fully equipped with necessary medical services. Arthur Garson who has been exclusively keen on the US Healthcare System brings up an outstanding analysis of the history of the health care system of the United States. He begins his analysis of the health care system with declaring the declaration that was made 10 years ago where the system was declared broken (Garson, 2000). However, the issue has not been fully sorted since a good deal of patients is still suffering from poor health care. The levels of premiums have been rising from time to time making the situation worse. He indicates that approximately 45 million Americans remain uninsured which is an indication that the system of health care in the country is slowly falling. Arthur brings up an outstanding argument that the government has several steps that it may undertake to ensure that the problem is completely solved. He believes that the main role of ensuring that this problem is solved lies on the hands of the government.
The United States of America has been developing new strategies that aim at ensuring that all individuals in the country access proper medical care. This has come up with extensive involvement of the government with development of new laws that govern the medical fraternity ranging from service delivery to extensive support for the service delivery process. Among examples that have been cited by various medical analysts are Medicare and Medicaid. These are programs that have been put into place to ensure that individuals have access to excellent medical services in the country.
However, the problem has not been solved completely in the country as there are still people who do not enjoy proper health care in the country following their inability or segregation on the basis of certain traits. The United States is a home for many immigrants with the highest percentage being that Latin Americans, followed by Asians as well as black immigrants. These groups have been exposed to extensive neglect by the government to a point of being denied health care. Kathryn Pitkin, Jose Escarce and Nicole Lurie have been involved in though research on the problems that immigrants who are representatives of minorities face in the United States as they try to fetch for health care (Derose, Escarce, & Lurie, 2007).
Immigration is a political issue that the government of the United States has tried to address from time to time. These authors refer to immigrants as the “Vulnerable population”. Their vulnerability is anchored to many factors which include social and political marginalization as well as lack of social economic and societal resources. It has become challenging to deal with health care needs for immigrants following the heterogeneity of this group as well as restriction by some federal and state policies for some immigrants to access health care in the United States (Wilson, 2011).
According to Kathryn and co-authors, the immigration rate in the United States has had alarming trends. In 2005, the population of immigrants was approximately 12 percent of the population of the population of the United States. This shows no sign of possible decrease as it has doubled from the statistics that was collected in 1970 (Derose, Escarce, & Lurie, 2007).
However, approximately a third of the immigrants have been absorbed to the United State’s population system either as legal permanent residents, naturalized citizens, as well as undocumented immigrants. It has become extremely difficult for the government to be considerate of these groups while enacting or giving public services to these people. The 1996, Reform Act directed that all legal immigrants be declared ineligible for public funded medical care such as Medicaid for their first five years of stay in the country. The unregistered immigrants as completely barred from accessing any form of medical care in the country.
Although, topic 6 of the 1964 Civil Act has been interrupted was interpreted to mean that federally funded health facilities must give interpretation for all patients who ask for it, the implementation is uneven. In California medical care has been favored on the favor of languages. However, some small groups in the State have been denied medical services following lack of compatibility of their language to that of the physician. However, there have been rampant efforts to ensure that all individuals are given equal chances. The Federal Law requires that the state Medicaid agencies overcome language barriers to offering excellent health care for people in the United States (Garson, 2000).
Health care in California
This is one of the famous cities in the United States. It has been renowned for various elements where one of the most critical ones is health care among the citizens of the state. It is extensively concerned with the well being of its citizens although it has not been able to deal with the problem in a concrete manner. It has been estimated that in California, two thirds of the population is uninsured. However, plans are being advanced to ensure that the state enjoys proper health care. This is one of the elements that motivated the enactment of 2010 Affordable Care Act. However, this program did not fully satisfy the issue of improper health care among the members of the state (Wilson, 2011).
However, there have been massive efforts that have been aiming at ensuring that problems of health care are completely solved. In connection to this problem, SB 22 Bill of California was developed. This is a bill entitled Health care coverage: mental health parity (Pan, 2013). This bill requires insurers and health plans to collectively submit annual report to state regulators certifying compliance with federal and state mental health parity laws. This bills aims at revoking health care for everyone in the society.
This bill would assist in solving the problems in several ways. Having a critical look at the bill, it was aimed at resolving a problem that mainly surrounded individuals with mental problems. This is an indication that there was recognition that different people who had special problems faced diverse challenges that could have only been eliminated through campaign for proper care or equal care for all individuals in the society. In this case, eyeing on the problems that individuals with mental problems underwent it was required that proper record be kept on the number of mental cases that were handled. This was entrusted to Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC), which ensured that there was compliance with state and federal parity laws on mental health (Pan, 2013).
The state was mainly concerned with the behavior of insurers as they rendered services to the public. This led to the dictation in the bill that all health insurers submit their annual reports to California Department of Insurance (CDI). This was a further affirmation that there is need for proper care for all citizens. The audit would be fundamental in ensuring that all citizens were in a position to access medical care and no reason would deny them excellent medical care. According to Kathryn and Co-authors, insurers have been playing critical role in exposing most people to poor or no health care. There have been segregations on medical care on the basis of certain factors that have remained unsolved by the medical law of the United States. However, this bill keeps main stakeholders in the health insurance sectors on their toes to ensure that the public is saved from lack of access to proper medical care through health care insurance cover (Pan, 2013).
Legislative process in California
However, this bill would have no impact to the health care of the citizens of California or the United States if it is not enacted to law. Having satisfied the first stage of being registered as a bill in the senate, it is extremely easy for the health care bill SB 22 to become law. Nevertheless, it has to satisfy the law making process that the state needs to abide.
The bill already has an idea which is to eliminate improper or inadequate health care in California as well as the entire nation. Form this stage the idea is taken to the author who has to be an assembly member entrusted on behalf of the legislative counsel to make it an actual bill. The bill later proceeds to first reading which is also known as the introduction stage where further details are attached to the bill in terms of bill number, author, as well as descriptive bill title. From introduction the bill goes to committee hearings where in this case the bill goes to the senate Health and Human services committee to conduct policy review. It is at this point that announcements are made to indicate the support or opposition of the bill from the members of the committee. The next step is the second and third reading in the house of origin by the committee where voting takes place for the bill to proceed to the next stage. Once it has been approved by the house of origin the health care bill will be advanced to the other house where the procedure is repeated. If amendment takes place in the second house it must be returned to the second house for concurrence. If it is approved by the two houses, it gets to the governor who is supposed to sign it into law. However, this bill is still in the committee stage where adjustments will be made before, becomes law (California State Legislature, 2011)
Having a critical look at this bill if it passes it will have saved the society an extremely critical burden for the agony that individuals have been undergoing. For example, the 10th requirement of the bills states that every carrier or insurer should prepare an annual report on health care consultation. The individuals must be ranked on the basis of the services that they experience of small groups, large groups as well as administrative services. Although, this Bill has not been signed into law, it must be extremely significant on enhancing proper health care for all individuals in the United States including the minority. However, the Bill may not be used to decide on any health care issuance issue as it has not been launched as effective.
Role of Advanced Practice Nurses (APN)
Nurses are extremely fundamental stakeholders in the health care sector. They are usually extremely fundamental in defining the fate for various health issues as well as elements that are brought up in a state. It has not always been clear on how their influence may impact certain activities in the law making process that involves health bills. Following their extensive involvement in dealing with main challenges that are related to health they deserve being consulted if a bill is to be passed into law. They would be extremely significant in defining on what basis the element of discussion would be used as law as well as the necessary principles that need be involved to bar the law from being a problem in future.
Therefore, in the process making heath care in California compulsory the views of the APN cannot be ignored. They would be extremely contributive to necessary medical principles which needs be intertwined to legal rules to make the new law assistive to the public.
Conclusion
Access to health care has been a major problem in the United States. The problem has been extremely rampant on the basis of segregation in delivery for medical services in the US. However, there have been various attempts to deal with the poor health care in the country with most of the legal frameworks developed failing on the basis of ignoring certain elements of great significance in dealing with health care. However, the California senate has come up with an outstanding bill known as Health care coverage: mental health parity bill aimed at changing the law on how insurers and medical service providers offer their services. Having followed the required legal process, the bill is at committee stage where upon approval may become law. However, the development of this law is extensively reliant on the views of Advanced Practice Nurses who may influence professional principles to be interwoven to the state’s law to make the health care bill a law in future.
References
California State Legislature. (2011, February 23). Overview of Legislative Process. Official California Legislative Information. Retrieved July 12, 2013, from http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bil2lawx.html
Derose, K. P., Escarce, J. J., & Lurie, N. (2007). Immigrants And Health Care: Sources Of Vulnerability. Health Affairs,26(5), 1258-1268.
Garson, A. (2000, September 12). The US Healthcare System 2010 . Circulation . Retrieved July 12, 2013, from http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/101/16/2015.full
Pan, R. (2013, June 25). BILL ANALYSIS BILL ANALYSIS Bill Analysis SB 22 Senate Bill - Bill Analysis . Official California Legislative Information. Retrieved July 12, 2013, from http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_22_cfa_20130621_122335_asm_c
Wilson, K. B. (2011, March 12). Health Insurance in California: A Recent History - CHCF.org. California HealthCare Foundation -- Supporting Ideas and Innovations to Improve Health Care for All Californians. Retrieved July 12, 2013, from http://www.chcf.org/publications/2011/03/health-insurance-history
