Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Health Care


The History of Healthcare:

Health Care before 1920 wasn’t that important because doctors didn’t know much about diseases to charge people a high price. People were able to pay out of the pocket with no problem. When diseases and technology grew the health care grew. Technology, diseases, the use of the hospital and the help of the great depression began to cause prices to become less affordable for people. Health care was born because of this; Baylor Hospital in Dallas created Blue Cross to help people pay their hospital bills. Insurance for doctors began to grow, other insures start entering the market making it so that not only were doctors covered but employees at jobs and soldiers were also covered. The government then starts having tax incentives and the health care starts to take a turn. Blue cross were charging everyone the same price but when the business started to grow they started charging people off of age, gender, health status and pre-existing medical conditions. The health insurance business starts insuring the healthiest people and avoiding the sickest. The different statuses start here with birth of health care.

Healthcare started in the 1930’s to protect doctor payments. Originally healthcare was simple system where people paid a flat fee and they were insured. But as private insurance companies came in search for profit, political ideologies began to mold the healthcare industry. Democrats applied their ideology by wanting healthcare for all but at a higher cost. Republicans are in favor of free market and competition so they are all for privatized healthcare. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9eb2ad6-d022-11e1-99a8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz28sgvfdJY

 

Democratic History on Medicare:

The Democratic Party became part of the healthcare system in 1960 when John F. Kennedy was elected into office. In 1965 he passed Medicare as a two part federal program. Part A was the compulsory hospital insurance program where the elderly upon reaching the age 65 was automatically enrolled. Part B provided supplemental medical insurance, or subsidized insurance for physicians’ services (EH.net). Physicians benefitted from Medicare out of the fear that patients wouldn’t be served, legislators agreed to reimburse physicians their usual rate. Doctors could also bill patients directly; charge patients more than what Medicare would pay. Funding for Medicare came from payroll taxes, income taxes, trust fund interest, and enrollee premiums for Part B. Medicare went from serving 19.1 million people in 1966 to 39.5 million in 1999 (Henderson 2002, pg.425)


 


 

To understand the healthcare debate, one has to understand both healthcare plans proposed by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. One key idea to Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan is the proposal that privatized healthcare promotes efficiency and competition. The correlation to these two falls in the fact that companies compete to sell their services, and they want to do it better than the competition. This drives research to have the best goods and services available to medical patients, therefore companies are always creating new products that improve the health of Americans.

 

Another idea of Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan is to shift the responsibility of managing healthcare from the federal government to state governments. Romney would like to shift the responsibilities to the individual states because regardless of what state one is in, the state knows better than the federal government. Meaning that the states are closer to the people therefore they should know how to care for their people rather than the generalized federal government.

 

Consumer choice is another product of Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan. Consumer choice does exactly what Romney says it will: it “empowers the consumer” and puts them at the “center of attention.” By empowering the consumer, the consumer has the ability to pick goods and services that they need for their medical issues.

 

President Barack Obama:

After decades of opposition from Republicans, President Barack Obama and Democrats passed the Comprehensive Health Reform also known as the Affordable Care Act or Obama Care into law on March 23rd 2010. This made health care available to all Americans. This act provides tax cuts to small businesses, tax credits to help families pay for insurance. It also lower costs to families, businesses, and federal government reducing the deficit by more than 1 trillion dollars in the next two decades. It strengthens Medicare by reducing fraud and improving quality. It’s also said to be an eliminator of all discrimination for pre-existing conditions and expand coverage for an additional 32 million Americans by 2014.




2008 Democratic Campaign:

In 2008, Barack Obama along with other Democratic candidates (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) all proposed their plans for health care to be Universal Health Care for all Americans in the United States of America. (U.S.A Today).


Implications:

 

What are the relevant implications of healthcare in America. The implications of healthcare can fall into three main categories: social, political, and economical. From a social point of view, the main question is should all people in America have healthcare whether they have the funds to pay for it or not. Obama would like all people to be insured regardless of their financial status. Mitt Romney on the other hand would like Americans to pay for the healthcare that they need, regardless if they can afford it or not. The social aspect of the controversy to the American people is which plan is fair?

 

The political implication of the healthcare controversy lies in how much power is tied into healthcare. Democrats are in favor of a larger government, while republicans, of course, are in opposition to a large government and think government should be smaller. In Obama’s healthcare plan, the government would have control of 1/6th of the national budget, which equals a lot of power. While as Mitt Romney’s plan to reduce government spending on healthcare and relocate healthcare to the states would make the federal government smaller.

 

Last but probably most importantly is the economic implication of healthcare. People care about the money in their pocket and they care what it goes toward. With the two different healthcare approaches from Obama and Romney, obviously each plan is not going to cost the same amount and the goods and services that come from the plans is different.

 

Expenditures:

Medicare and Medicaid expenditures have grown since their commencement (Fig. 3 Chart). Expenditures rose greatly in the late 60’s. Medicare expenditures rose sharply during the 70’s. This caused a major change in Medicare reimbursement policies in 1983. Instead of regular rates, providers were reimbursed according to a set fee based on diagnoses. Medicaid expenditures were constant over the 70’s and 80’s. Medicaid started to rise in the 90’s due to more eligibility requirements. In 1994 President Bill Clinton proposed a health care reform package that would provide universal health care for all Americans. The core element of the plan was a decree for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely regulated health maintenance organizations. Libertarians, conservatists and the health care industry opposed and eventually the proposal was rejected by the senate.  By 2001 Medicare and Medicaid together accounted 32 percent of all healthcare expenditures in the U.S. (EH.net).


Medicaid provided medical resources for the indigent. Federal portion of payments was based on each states per capita income relative to national per capita income. Unlike Medicare uniformed benefits and eligibility standards, Medicaid only specifies minimum standards. Each state was responsible for determining eligibility and benefits. Benefits and eligibility varied in different states. The original legislation provided coverage for public assistance but now narrowed the scope to beneficiaries. 10 million people had Medicaid in 1966 by 1999 37.5 million people had Medicaid (EH.net).

Two Sides:

 

When researching healthcare the two sides that stand out are in the terms of Obama and Romney’s proposed plans are citizens who are for the greater good and citizens who believe that you work for what you get. Obama’s healthcare plan is for the citizens who think in the greater good because they are willing to pay a little extra to help cover other citizens who might not be able to afford their healthcare. With Mitt Romney’s plan you get what you pay for and that’s as simple as is.

 

 

 

Connected Argument:

As used in our class example that Pro-life and pro-choice thinkers are really arguing for the “rights of the individual” and “justice” therefore they are arguing for the same thing just in different ways. But healthcare just isn’t that easy; the divide between the Republican ideology and Democratic ideology of healthcare is extremely different. Therefore they are not arguing for the same thing. Obama want’s affordable healthcare for everyone, while Mitt Romney is a promoter of the free market and how competition drives the development of technology. So they truly are not arguing for the same thing.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Presidential Debate


Creating jobs:
Obama:

Go back to bill Clinton tax cut plan from deficit to surplus

  • I agree on taxing the upper class rather than the middle class because the middle class is the majority of the United States today and the upper class won’t lose much but the burden won’t fall upon any class. Middle class will then have some money in their pockets and the upper class will still have their money.
  • Obama will be using the same tax cut that Bill Clinton used which created 23 million jobs and took the United States from deficit to surplus. The way that the tax cut will work is that it will put money in the pockets of the middle class so that they could buy things for their children or disposable reasons => which will then  give companies business => and enable them to hire more workers.

I really agree with that plan because not only does it help small business gain profits and adults find jobs, but it also help students in high school or in college that can't afford summer school during the summer to find a job because it's very hard to do so. So I will argue that it won't be a plus for the upper class but it will help out the middle class and all other people who are the majority.


Romney:

  • Use Bush tax cut plan went from surplus to deficit
  • Some ways that Romney said he will create jobs will be through energy dependent, opening up jobs in Latin America and using Bush's tax cut plan.

Tax cuts for high income people are not in his worries. He is thinking about using Bush's tax plan which was the plan that put the United States back in the debt that Clinton had brought the United States out of. I will argue that the Clinton plan by far is better than Bush's plan because it created jobs and put the United States in a surplus. The Bush plan didn't show that much of an increase in jobs and it also put the United States into a debt that was more than what it was before. I also do not agree with him opening up jobs in Latin America, yeah it may benefit the United States in some way but right now the people that are needing jobs and who are important to this debate are the Americans in the United States. That's where he need to focus on opening up jobs.

 

Health Care:

I agree with Obama on the voucher system that Romney has, it will help the older people to a certain extent but the younger people will have to go out and find health care and pay for it themselves. I agree with Romney on it being the people's choice but the voucher system just won’t work for long. It will then collapse.

Obama Deficit plan:
  • Will be cutting the  government programs that wasn't helping people and cutting the discretionary budget.
 
Romney Deficit:
  • crack down on china
I Agree with Romney with his idea on borrowing money from china because some day we will have to pay and like Dr.Hammer said we will be their B***h  lol.