According to the Hastings Center, health care costs are increasing at an annual

Question

According to the Hastings Center, health care costs are increasing at an annual rate of 7% a year. If this continues, Medicare will be bankrupt in nine years and the national health care burden will increase to $4 trillion in 10 years. The escalation of health care costs is largely due to medical technology. Businesses are finding it harder to provide health coverage as an employee benefit. Ten years ago, 70 % of employers provided health care. Today that percentage is at 61%. There are three system-wide efforts, based on the way our current system operates, that can bring down cots. One of them is to raise taxes to pay for programs such as Medicare. Another is to cut benefits, which equals less care. The third is to force people to pay more out of pocket. For this assignment, as a health services administrator, you have been asked to serve as an advisor as part of a health care reform initiative. The advisory group must bring forward a proposed solution for the above scenario. Which of the above solutions will you support? Frame the issue. Propose your solution. Explain why you selected this option. Support with data and research.

Explanation / Answer

There are a number of proposed and detailed schemes for Medicare. Medical service providers use variety of techniques for effective utilization and improving the quality of care health plans. But these schemes do nothing comparable for cost control, which is implicitly unpopular. It’s because reducing cost will mean that individual will be forced to give up something and accept a different, more austere kind of health care.

To solve this problem, advisory group forwarded a proposed solution to cut benefits as per the requirement on individuals. It will lead to reduction in cost without sacrificing quality. Comments of the advisory group on three systems are as follows:

1. One of them is to raise taxes to pay for programs such as Medicare.

Imposing new taxes applying to health insurance and health care will increase the health insurance cost that means additional revenue for Medicare. But that would mean an additional burden on individuals which will not be preferred by them

2. Another is to cut benefits, which equals less care. The new mandated benefits and other regulatory burdens have increased the cost. If we cut benefits as per the requirements of individuals then there would not be any financial burden. Moreover, Medicare will also earn premium. The young and healthy can drop out of insurance pools or enrol in the schemes as per their requirement. There is reduction in cost without sacrificing quality

3.The third is to force people to pay more out of pocket. Mostly who support Obamacare do so because of a principled belief that everyone should have access to essential health care. If we shift the burden on individual they will face financial threats, therefore will not be preferred

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