Government healthcare programs have played a critical role in the enhancement of the wellbeing of the Americans. Such programs include the Medicare and Medicaid. However, the programs have been operating without unique consideration of the cost of healthcare offered to each individual. Although, the practice has been in existence for a while, a new strategy should be embraced to allow the programs to predict the financial risk when offering the medical covers (Segal et al, 2014).
The programs need to adopt a strategy where the insurance cover is not extended to all people equally. The method would help the government to save on some money, which would be further useful in the improvement of the medical facilities in the United States. However, a strategy needs to be embraced that would help in undertaking the strategy.
The different occupants of public offices are ranked based on the nature of the job they do and the responsibilities assigned to them. It means the risks are not equally distributed among the government employees. Therefore, the Medicaid and Medicare programs should embrace a plan that will help all the individuals to access medical insurance thou it will take a different form. The value of a medical cover will be granted by the risks involved as well as well as the responsibilities entitled to a certain position (Segal et al, 2014). Also, there will be a critical review of the involved risks in a certain field and the necessary provisions for the insurance covers based on the risks.
Further, the programs may offer the medical covers based on the jobs that citizens do in their contribution to the economic growth. The higher the responsibility, the higher the medical cover should be. It would encourage hard work as well as save the government from the extensive cost of medical insurance.
Also, age should be used as an element to classify the citizens into risk pools. At different ages, people have unique contributions to the economy. Therefore, there is a need to focus on the most productive age bracket in the population and invest more on them. Children and middle aged adults should get a cover that will ensure that most of the risks to their health and life are taken care of accordingly.
Viability of Medicare and Medicaid
It is true that Medicare and Medicaid have been there for the elderly in paying their medical bills and facilitating their treatments for various chronic diseases. The health cover programs have been facilitated to undertake the responsibility of ensuring everyone in the United States has access to proper medical care. They played critical role of ensuring the elderly do not die of chronic diseases, which may be very expensive if there was no medical cover involved.
Also, the health insurance is significant since it helps such people to access one of the basic needs, which is healthcare. At the old age, people are unproductive hence, they need support for such requirements as medical care. However, the programs should focus on reaching the young people and educate them on how they can maintain proper health. The strategy would improve the viability of the healthcare programs in future since there will be minimal cases of chronic diseases among the elderly people. The programs will have saved a lot of money through enhancement of proper living for the young people by exposing them to proper living habits.
Causes of changes in Medicare
Although, the Medicare program continues to make a number of changes to maintain it as a solvent, the changes may not be the most vital. Medicare program has been facing a number of challenges, such a reduced registration of members and massive withdrawal of some of the members. There seems to be an extent of an exodus in Medicare, which may be attributed to by a number of factors.
The services that program offers may have been overtaken by time since there are new private companies coming up every day offering reasonable support for the patients. The healthcare program may have remained adamant for a long time making people reluctant in undertaking the initiative that would make them seek the services of Medicare. Also, the program does not offer substantial support to the members as they are usually limited in the class of hospitals that they may seek assistance (Ganzfried, 2002). It becomes exceedingly hard to convince people to remain with poor services while they can access better and reasonable services.
Therefore, it is agreeable that Medicare will cease to exist in the present form if the trend of quitting for eligible recipients continues to take a downfall. The program will only stand if the registration for membership continues to rise. It means there will be a wider pool of the money required to undertake the management process or role for the healthcare program (Ganzfried, 2002). The numbers would sustain the program while the lack of growth for the healthcare program would dictate its end.
Issues with national healthcare programs
Government programs are usually the most sensitive to run in health sectors as well as other sectors represented by a particular government. Financing and administration by the government may take a lengthy procedure. Financing requires different signatories to be present to ensure it goes through, and the money is utilized for the intended purpose. On the other hand, the administration calls for extensive consultations among the government officials on the manner by which certain responsibilities would be undertaken. In most cases, the processes are lengthy and are not likely to bear the relevant benefits (Friedman & Kovner, 2014).
In the United States, the process of managing the finances and ensuring proper administration may be extremely length and tedious. The government officials are entitled to massive duties, which call for consideration of a number of protocols. As such, it becomes hard for the US to adopt a national healthcare that is similar to that of the British.
The British and U.S healthcare systems are not similar. It would be challenging if the United States adopted the British system. The United States healthcare system employs a strategy that brings both the private and public healthcare systems under one roof of health insurance. Therefore, most of the public healthcare facilities have adopted the private healthcare insurance providers to suit their operations (Friedman & Kovner, 2014). Therefore, it would be extremely hard for the government to intervene in such situations and change all the operations to management by the U.S national healthcare system.
The employer-sponsored healthcare benefits should not be done away with to favor the government sponsored healthcare. One of the reasons why the employer-sponsored healthcare benefits should not be scrapped is because they allow the individuals to enjoy healthcare maximally based on the nature of the jobs. The individuals under employer sponsorship can access cover for extremely risky situations that are likely to compromise the wellbeing of the individual. As such, it would be wrong to have the employer-sponsored healthcare benefits done away with as it is not a hindrance to the success of the government-sponsored healthcare programs.
References
Friedman, L., & Kovner, A. (2014). 101 careers in healthcare management.
Ganzfried, E. (2002). Medicare: Medicare News and Updates. Perspectives On Administration And Supervision, 12(2), 13.
Segal, M., Rollins, E., Hodges, K., & Roozeboom, M. (2014). Medicare-Medicaid Eligible Beneficiaries and Potentially Avoidable Hospitalizations. Medicare & Medicaid Research Review,4(1), 1-13.
