Health Care: U.S Health Care Timeline
Drugs and life-saving medical operations and procedures provide to everyone a better, longer, and healthier living. In America, the uninsured people have it rough when it comes to having affordable health care services. It has been about a century since America started debates on health care reforms and adoption to have everyone included in the program. A U.S health care timeline allows one to see and learn how the congress has handled the issue of America’s health care cover for its citizens over the decades.
The year 1965 was the year that saw the signing in into law Medicare and Medicaid programs. Part A, of the Medicare was to cater for the payment of limited skilled nursing, hospital care, and home health care. Part B of the Medicare, which was optional, was to assist in the payment of physician care (Austin, 2011). Medicaid was totally a separate program that assisted the states in covering long-term care, and providing health insurance coverage programs for specific classes of the disabled and poor citizens.
The Medicare Prospective Payment System, normally abbreviated as PPS was introduced on first of October 1983 by the federal government. It was introduced as a way of changing hospital performance and behavior through offering of financial incentives with an aim of encouraging more cost-efficient and ample management of the earlier signed in medical care. Under this system, hospitals are paid or given predetermined rates for every Medicare admission. Classification of patients into different diagnosis-related group was one based on the patient’s clinical information (Marcinko, 2009). For patients having exceptionally high costs, the hospitals are paid flat rates for the Diagnosis related group, regardless of the provision of actual services.
Health Insurance Accountability and Portability Act was enacted by the U.S congress in 1996. It was put in place to promote the use of electronic data interchange in America’s health care system. The first title of HIPAA ensures the protection of health insurance coverage for employees and their families in a situation of job lose or change. Its second title, which is known as the Administrative Simplification provisions, requires national standards establishment for transmission of electronic health care and national identifiers for employers, providers, and health insurance plans (HHS.org, 2011). The provisions of Administration Simplification also address the issue of privacy and security of health data.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created in 1997 by the U.S Human services and Health department to provide matching funds to every state for health insurance of families with children. The program was aimed at providing insurance cover to uninsured children in middle-income and low-income earning families but cannot qualify for Medicaid. This program was the biggest expansion of health insurance coverage for children funded by taxpayers in America since signing in of Medicaid 1960s. During George W. Bush administration, two attempts to expand this program’s funding failed when he vetoed them.
President George White Bush signed the Medicare Prescription Drug Modernization and Improvement Act in the year 2003. The roles and uses of prescription drugs in America have greatly increased in the present years since the creation of Medicare in 1965. New and more expensive drugs have now come into use making health care unaffordable for patients and senior citizens whom the care was particularly designed to help (Long, 2009). President Bush put the Act into place to address this problem by providing insurance cover for drugs to those qualified for Medicare.
President Bush again signed another Act known as in Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, in the year 2006. The Act was designed to make significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid relating to asset transfer, cost haring, benefits, and premiums (Kaiser Family, 2006). The drafters of the Act expect to generate U.S. $39 billion over the 2006 - 2010 periods, in federal entitlement reductions and U.S. $99 billion over the 2006 - 2015 periods. The Act outlines a program that collaborates with the states to provide long-term assistance and health coverage to over thirty-nine million low-incoming families and approximately twelve million disabled and elderly people.
President Obama established the Office of Health Reform in 2009, to coordinate and manage administrative efforts on reforms in national health program. He also reauthorized the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provided the states with extra incentives and funding to help it reach and support the estimated 4.1 million children who otherwise would not have been insured by the year 2013. The president stated that, “this program acted as part of his commitment to provide affordable health care cover to all Americans” (CNN health, 2009).
The dream of providing medical insurance cover to all Americans comes to reality in on 23rd of March 2010 when President Obama, signed the Affordable Health Care and Patient Protection Act. The historic health care reform legislation was considered as landmark legislation in the face of America’s history. The main requirement of the act is that, all citizens in America should have health insurance by the beginning of the year 2014 (Henry, 2011). The legislation allows the provision of Medicare and Medicaid to everyone in America, as it shuns denying the right to any individual, for any reasons such as their income status, health status, age, gender, or race.
References
Austin, A. (2011). Health and Health Care in the United States: The United States Health Care System: Combining Business, Health, and Delivery. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Published by Prentice Hall.
CNN health. (2009). Health Care Timeline: Health Care in America. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/25/healthcare.timeline/index.html
Henry, J. (2011). Timeline: History of Health Reform Efforts in the U.S. Health Reforms. Retrieved from http://healthreform.kff.org/flash/health-reform-new.html
HHS.org. (2011). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules. Health Information Privacy. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/
Kaiser Family. (2006). Deficit Reduction Act of 2005: Implications for Medicaid. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Retrieved from http://www.kff.org/medicaid/upload/7465.pdf
Long, D. (2009). Greenspan: Aging Demographics to Outstrip Healthcare Capacity. Medical Device Daily. The Daily Medical Technology Newspaper, 13(68): 6.
Marcinko, D. E. (2009). Origins of Diagnostic Related Groups. Understanding the Medicare Prospective Payment System. Retrieved from http://medicalexecutivepost.com/2009/09/17/understanding-the-medicare-prospective-payment-system/
