Introduction
Health insurance has become an important form of security in the modern world. In a country like the United States, health insurance is sought part of being a US citizen and has become a basic necessity for the population. With this thought, there are still millions of people that are uninsured and form one of the biggest social and public sector issues today. Solutions to this problem come in all forms but only a few can be logically implemented, accepted, and benefit all parties.
Solutions
There are several planned, proposed, and potential solutions to the issue of uninsured people. These are mainly different ways of covering the uninsured and vary in cost, philosophy, and methodology. Some of these are discussed briefly as follows.
The basic idea is to provide health benefits and insurance for all Americans. This can be done only when there is willingness and participation from all influential actors including the healthcare provider and the patient. Controlling costs will result in efficiency and a greater share that can be used on the solutions to this problem through proper managerial practices and infrastructure. This can also be done by the simplification of the administrative side of the healthcare sector. Finally, affordable solutions for both the public and the private and public financers are the key to proper implementation and running (Battista).
One of the basic solutions is to use the federal funds to cover uninsured people several hundred percent below the poverty line. This will redirect a chunk of the federal funds towards healthcare expenditure, which is the only problematic aspect although it would somewhat lower the uninsured population.
High deductible health insurance is another solution that will help the uninsured through healthcare savings accounts and will use taxes to fund coverage solutions. Another basic but large-scale solution is a single large pool of healthcare that all US citizens will be a part of, which will be publically funded. Another small-scale solution with limited effects would be to mandate employers to provide health insurance to employees that work for a certain amount of time during a week. Like these, several other solutions have been proposed by experts but only a few can be applicable. (Healthcare coverage in America: Understanding the issues and proposed solutions).
Present solutions
Currently, few of these solutions are being implemented. That does not mean that nothing is being done about the uninsured issue, just that the current solutions are a little different than the ones mentioned above, which seems ideal (Kennedy).
The current measures being taken are similar yet different. The new US administration is focusing on higher discount rates from drug companies to medical insurance providers. Among the solutions mentioned above, redirection of federal funds is being proposed with the idea of funding medical research and financing the insurance-providing pool for the public. This also includes expenditure on outreach programs that help the issue of immigrants and minority uninsured people (Robert).
Plan to implement solutions
In my view, a good plan to start the solution chain for this problem would be the proper reallocation of federal funds in favor of healthcare research and insurance coverage. At the same time, in parallel, the US administration needs to plan out and implement a single publically funded pool and provide health insurance for all US citizens at nominal rates, a system similar to the Canadian counterpart (Varnon).
Works Cited
- Battista, John R. “Solving The Problem Of The Uninsured.” 2004. Connecticut Coalition for Universal healthcare.
- “Healthcare coverage in America: Understanding the issues and proposed solutions.” 2008. cover the uninsured.org.
- Rob Varnon. “Many arguments, few solutions to growing problem of uninsured Americans.” Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) (n.d.). Newspaper Source. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation].
- Robert, Pear. Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care. 2009. Web.
- Sheryl Kennedy. “Detroit Health Care Providers, Politicians, Seek Solutions for Uninsured.” Detroit Free Press (MI) (n.d.). Newspaper Source. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation].