Healthcare can best be defined as the maintaining as well as the improving of one’s health through various aspects such as treatment, vaccination and so on. The deliverance of health care is mostly done by professionals of health in all fields. The access to health care services has been observed to vary across various countries, regions, ethnicities, social groups in society as well as individuals (Healthy People 2011). However, the main factors influencing access to health services have been reported to be the social as well as economic conditions of a particular place. The access to quality healthcare services is very essential so as to achieve health equity as well as to increase the quality of health for people. Healthy People is a forum that is there to provide improvement of health to all Americans through providing ten year national objectives that are based on science. Healthy People 2020, launched on December 2, 2010 seeks to improve the health of the nation with a vision to have a society in which the people living in it are healthy and live for long (Healthy People 2011).
Healthy People 2020 have a mission to identify the nationwide health priorities that require improvement, create awareness as well as understanding of health determinants, disease as well as progress opportunities. Also, it strives to provide objectives as well as goals that can be not only applicable at the national level but also at the state and local ones. Another mission is that Healthy People 2020 strives to bring together multiple sectors in order for them to take actions necessary in order to strengthen certain health policies as well as improve health practices. Another main objective of Healthy People 2020 is to identify the needs of critical research, evaluation as well as data collection (Healthy People, 2011). In other words, the main goals of Healthy People 2020 are to attain achieve health equity, improve the health of all groups in the United States irrespective of social and economic status, create not only social but also physical environments that promote good health for all people and to attain longer lives that are free of diseases, disabilities, injuries as well as premature deaths.
Healthy People 2020 focuses on four components of access to care which include; Coverage, services, timeliness and workforce. Coverage, the first component of access to care pertains to health insurance coverage that at most times helps patients to get into the healthcare system. Health coverage is best termed as insurance awarded against any risk of experiencing any medical expenses under any circumstances among individuals. This coverage includes an insurer developing a financial structure routine on estimating the overall risk of expenses. According to Healthy People 2020, people who are not insured are less likely to receive medical care, more likely to have poor health status and are more likely to die early. The ultimate lack of enough coverage makes it quite difficult to impossible for people to receive the health care services that they require and whenever they do get access to care, they are burdened with heavy medical bills. The current policy efforts mainly focus on providing insurance coverage as a way to ensure access to health care among every population (Healthy People 2011).
Services is the second component to access care which entails the improvement of health care services by making sure that people have access to not only a usual but also an ongoing care source. People who often have usual care sources have been reported to have better outcomes in terms of health as well as less costs and disparities. According to Healthy People 2020, having a primary care provider as one’s usual source of care is very essential as it develops meaningful as well as sustained relationships with patients while providing services. This leads to more trust by the patients towards the provider, enhanced communication as well as a higher possibility that patients are going to acquire great healthcare. The improvement of health services leads to an increase in access to as well as use of preventive services that are based on evidence. Clinical preventive services prevent diseases by detecting symptoms early enough making it easier to treat.
Timeliness, the third component, is the ability of healthcare systems to provide health care quickly in time when it is required. Delaying in acquiring healthcare in instances where patients are seriously injured or ill is a significant hindrance to care. This often leads to less satisfaction by patients and leads to an increase in the number of patients who often leave without being examined. Workforce, which is the last component to access care, entails primary care providers playing important roles in the overall health of the people and communities served by them. Healthy People 2020 state that there is a decrease in the number of medical students who have an interest in working in primary care. In order to improve the health of the nation, it is essential to increase as well as track the number of primary care providers.
Lack of health care access can be quite consequential and especially on the female gender. The occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases among women and girls is a major consequence as a result of lack to health care access. This is because the prevalence of sexually y transmitted diseases is very high and especially among sexually active individuals. Due to the lack of access to prevention, most at times due to the high costs incurred, women and young girls often find themselves contracting these infections which can be serious if not treated. This is also seen in cases of rape among women and girls who are unable to access health care after the incident which in most times leads to contracting infections. However, access to care issues will need to be greatly and closely monitored within the United States healthcare system beginning 2014 because there is going to be an influx of patients as 32 million Americans will have access to health insurance for the first time ever. Due to this, as well as other issues, the measurement and development of new models and strategies is very important(Healthy People 2011).
According to Moreno-Serra & Smith (2015), progress towards having health coverage often involves people with access to the required health services without having to incur financial difficulties and always advocating for population health improvement. Moreno-Serra & Smith (2015)’s article seeks to explain the evidence based on the effects of health coverage on mortality outcomes at the national level. The article however examines a financial barrier that is faced at most times by people due to serious overpricing of health insurance policies hence making it hard for a lot of people to have health coverage (Moreno-Serra & Smith 2015). This financial barrier is also spoken about in Healthy People 2020 where it is seen that most people of a lower social class are unable to get health insurance coverage. One strategy that can be used to better the situation is to come up with coverage plans that even people of a low social class can be able to afford and also by offering free coverages to the extremely poor in society.
Research presented by another article also shows that health insurance coverage is quite influential in an individual’s health. Buchmueller et.al (2016) states that health insurance coverage is very important in aiding one’s health. It is also seen that due to lack of health coverage most people are not able to gain access to health care. This article expounds more on the effect of affordable care act on racial as well as ethnic disparities in health insurance coverage. In this article, it is seen that the health insurance coverage is different in different racial and ethnical disparities. This is seen in the article that the minority races particularly the black and Hispanic were not able to afford healthcare insurance coverage back then as it was only mostly afforded by the majority races like the white. This issue of race in this article is seen to be a great barrier to access to health care. One strategy that can be implemented would be that one of make premiums on coverage low in order to be affordable as well as eliminating racial inequality in order to ensure that everyone is able to get the same privileges.
References
Buchmueller, T. C., Levinson, Z. M., Levy, H. G., & Wolfe, B. L. (2016). Effect of the Affordable Care Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage. American Journal of Public Health, 106(8), 1416-1421.
Moreno-Serra, R., & Smith, P. C. (2015). Broader health coverage is good for the nation's health: evidence from country level panel data. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 178(1), 101-124.
HealthyPeople.gov (2011). 2020 Topics and Objectives
