Ethical Issue Facing Health Care: Healthcare insurance issues
The healthcare industry is littered with complex issues and ethical dilemmas. One of the most serious ethical issues can be classified as a dilemma as well. It is actually a combination of issues revolving around the problems tat come with healthcare insurance of patients. These problems can range from whether or not the person has healthcare insurance to the doubt that whether or not the insurance providers are going to pay for the medical treatments. Sadly, such issues affect the manner in which doctors treat their patients, today (Pan, 2008).
The Issue and the People Concerned
The specific ethical issue is whether a dilemma; a doctor has to decide between treating a patient, or not, who may require serious medical attention, with the doctor being unclear or negative about the patient’s healthcare insurance standing. In an extreme case, the patient might not have insurance and probably would not be able to pay for the medical treatment. In another case, the insurance might cover certain forms and aspects of medical treatment but not others. Should the doctor stay within the boundaries marked by the insurance parameters or they do what ever it takes to make the patient feel better? Or, should the doctor treat a patient with no medical insurance and risk not getting paid for it? In other cases, even though a patient might have healthcare insurance, the provider may or may not pay for the treatment – that is another issue that concerns today’s healthcare professionals. There is always an issue that concerns the information provided to the insurance providers and they can change their terms or deny coverage based on their criteria. Therefore, doctors and other healthcare professionals tend to be very particular and careful about healthcare insurance coverage of their patients (Edge, 2006).
The people that are most affected by this issue are the uninsured population. This population has increased over the last few years, mainly 2007-2008, due to the economic downturn. There are several factors that contribute to the increase of the uninsured population; the primary one is economic situation. People have been subjected to layoffs and unemployment. Those who are employed may have experienced pay-cuts. In such situations, people cannot afford healthcare insurance costs, which have increased due to inflation and the price rises by pharmaceutical companies. Such people tend to discontinue such services so that they can afford other necessities. The population also includes minorities and immigrants. These people tend to remain uninsured due to a combination of reasons. Economic reasons are there but another factor that contributes is the cultural and communication gap. This particular population has a relatively lower standard of living and they tend to group and occupy areas and neighborhood. These people mostly work lower paying jobs and cannot afford medical insurance. The immigrants are naturally distanced from the locals and tend to group in their localities too. These localities are usually inaccessible to healthcare agencies that, on top of that, do not bother because they are not a prospective segment due to the financial situation of the people. There also exists a communication barrier usually formed due to language differences and so communicating healthcare benefits becomes difficult. It is all these factors that are the reason hy these people are not so open to healthcare insurance (Klemens, 2008).
Proposed Solutions
There have been several proposed solutions at the governmental level that still need to be built upon and implemented. These include convincing the pharmaceutical companies to lower prices of medicines for healthcare insurance companies so that they can provide services at a cheaper rate to a bigger population. Unfortunately, these pharma-giants have enough power to influence the members of the congress and have so far resisted any such reforms. Other solutions planned include a system similar to Canada’s; a single pool of healthcare insurance funding backed by the public.
In my opinion, the healthcare insurance sector needs to be promoted properly, especially among the uninsured. This can be done through proper communication efforts within the minorities and immigrants sections. As for the ethical issue, doctors need to be trained and reminded again what they work for. The prime objective is to serve mankind no matter what. The concern of getting reimbursed for their expertise is a valid one. For such cases, changes in reforms need to made n policies need to be implemented that safeguard the doctors’ earnings against such situations. With such security coming from the authorities, the doctors will not need to worry about their compensation and can focus more on humanitarian issues like the betterment and health of the patient.
Conclusion
The article gives a good picture of the ethical issues aced by healthcare professionals today. It talks about how ethical dilemmas are a part of everyday life but the healthcare sector is a delicate issue and has a special place. Since people’s lives are at stake and the health and well being of a human being is a high priority, special measures must be taken in order to ensure it.
References
- Edge, R. S. (2006). Ethics of Health Care: A Guide for Clinical Practice. Thomson Delmar Learning, a part of the Thomson Corporation.
- Klemens, J. (2008). Ethical Considerations of Privacy and Cyber-Medical Information.
- Pan, W. (2008). Some Ethical Issues in Health Care – Requirements and Treatments.