Introduction
The United States government has been keen to ensure that all its citizens have access to quality and affordable healthcare. There are several bills that have been passed to help develop the healthcare systems of this country to meet the demands of all the citizens. Although this effort has yielded good results, the country still experiences disparity in healthcare provisions among its populace. This has majorly been attributed to the high percentage of the Americans who are either uninsured or underinsured. According to Jiene (2011), there are some states within this nation with almost half of their population being either uninsured or underinsured. This has impacted negatively on the lives of this populace. Most of the hospitals only consider providing healthcare services to those with comprehensive insurance cover or those with the ability to pay the high prices they charge. This means that the poor who are either uninsured or underinsured may get medical attention in most of these hospitals. This has resulted into serious health consequences on this population, with some of them dying because of lack of medical attention. This should not happen in this country which has the best healthcare services in the world. Something can be done to spare the lives of the poor who are uninsured or underinsured. The responsible stakeholders can come together to provide superior healthcare service to uninsured individual without forcing them to pay overpriced allowance. This paper seeks to research on how we can create non-profit clinics and healthcare facilities that provide medical services to uninsured individuals where fees are charged on a sliding scale according to their income.
The Current State of Healthcare Provisions in the United States
The government of the United States has been keen on improving healthcare provision for its citizens. There has been a direct effort by the current government to develop mechanisms through which American citizens can access medical attention from public healthcare facilities without having to pay for the services at high costs. According to Wolper (2004), the United States of America offers one of the best health services to its citizens. The government has well drawn strategies that address issues related to health in all facilities providing healthcare across this nation. The good health services provided by this nation have not only been beneficial to the people of the United States but also to people outside America who seek their advanced health services in this nation. With the Obama Administration, the health sector has changed greatly. The government has been so much determined to ensure that all its citizens get access to good healthcare services irrespective of their social status. To ensure that health services are accessible to all, the president introduced the Healthcare Bill 2010. This Act was signed by President Obama on March, 2010. It is a health reform Act that is geared towards reforming the provision of healthcare services in the United States. The aim of this Act is to ensure that all the Americans have access to affordable healthcare services. This would ensure that even the poor Americans who in most cases are either underinsured or uninsured also have the right to access good medical services provided by this nation. The Act points out the need for the government to improve the quality of medical services and ensure that the benefit of this reform goes to all the Americans. This is possible as the Act emphasizes the point of the rich and those with permanent and well paying jobs to increase their health insurance payments in order to cater for the health expenses of the uninsured and the underinsured.
Despite the noble move by the government to ensure that its citizens get the right medical attention, it is true that the country has not been able to offer its citizens quality healthcare services. As Fielding (2009) says, the Americans who are uninsured have found themselves unable to pay for some medical services. This is because most of the hospitals are not willing to provide them with some services unless they determine the ability of the patient to pay. To those citizens who are underinsured, most of the healthcare centers within this country are only willing to offer limited healthcare services which are considered worth their insurance. This means that they are unable to get specialized treatment for some of the complex diseases like chronic heart disease. This condition has been so bad that some organization have proposed a complete overhaul of the current policies on healthcare provisions. This is because some of the uninsured and underinsured Americans have perished because of their inability to pay for their medications. Plunkett (2008) says that it is very unfortunate that in the current century, some Americans still die of treatable diseases not because the healthcare facilities are overstretched, but because they are unwilling to offer treatment unless they are paid.
This is especially so with the private hospitals which have some of the best instruments. The public hospitals which are meant to offer healthcare to all do not have adequate instruments that can help them offer the much needed healthcare provisions. Some of the public hospitals also demand that patients who seek medication from them should either be insured or ready to pay for the cost out of their pockets. This has complicated the matter. The change is evident, and it is true that these unfortunate incidents may not be witnessed in the near future. A comparative analysis of the current and the past healthcare provision show a consistent improvement, with the current administration scoring the highest in terms of offering medical attention to all the Americans. This makes it easy to believe that it is possible to achieve universal healthcare for all the Americans irrespective of an individual’s social status. This is a sure way of fighting unnecessary deaths that are always caused by inability of some patients to pay for their medication.
The Proposed Changes on Healthcare Provisions
This proposal aims at creation of non-profit clinics and healthcare facilities that would provide medical services to uninsured or underinsured individuals where fees are charged on a sliding scale according to income. These healthcare facilities will be located in some of the states indentified to be having the highest percentage of the uninsured and the underinsured. According to the report by Blokdijk (2007), these states include California, New York, Florida, and Texas. The facilities will help in bridging the gap between the poor and the rich in healthcare provision within these states. This proposal seeks to ensure that these facilities are developed in these states, starting from Texas, which has the highest number of its populace uninsured. The analyses above indicate that most of those who suffer when they visit healthcare facilities are the uninsured. As such, this program will be developed in Texas with the aim of helping the majority under this category. The program will then be rolled out to the other three states and then to the entire nation. There are those states considered richer than others. However, this does not mean that all of their citizens have the capacity to meet the high medical attention.
In this program, it is proposed that the facilities will be well-equipped to meet the national standards. The management must ensure that the facility meets all the requirements of a standard healthcare facility. It is imprudent to construct a facility that is poorly equipped simply because it is geared towards helping the poor. The facility should not be exclusive for the poor. It should be able to attract other members of the society who are in the higher social class. This is because they will help in ensuring the sustainability of the hospitals. The fees will be charged on a sliding scale according to the income of the patients. This means that those who have stable earnings will be charged higher costs to help cater for the reduced cost of healthcare services offered to the poor. Those who are confirmed to be uninsured or underinsured and are unable to pay high prices for their medication will be charged affordable prices. The essence of introducing the small fee to the poor instead of making it absolutely free is because it will create a sense of responsibility among all the users of this facility (Wolper, 2004). It will make them believe that although this facility is meant to help the poor, the poor also have a responsibility to pay, based on their income, for improving healthcare services within this nation.
Sustainability of the Project
The initial investment of this project will have to come from the donors who are basically the well-wishers, the national and state governments, and non-governmental organizations. These donors will help establish the facility. They will also be expected to offer some support to these institutions once they are operational because this is a non-profit making organization. Their regular contributions will help ensure that this program is kept on track. The facilities will also be charging a specific fee for the clients who visit them. The fee is not meant to earn the facility some profits. The main reason for the fee is to create a sense of responsibility among the users. They will feel that the service comes at a fee, even if the fee is easily affordable. This fee will also help in ensuring the sustainability of the project. Those who are not American citizens, but visit this facility, will be charged at the market rates. The proceeds from this will also help ensure the sustainability of this project.
Conclusion
It is clear from the analysis above that there is a need to create non-profit making healthcare facilities in various states within this nation to help offer quality healthcare services to the uninsured and underinsured Americans. These two groups have suffered due to their inability to pay for the healthcare services in this country. Some have even died because of the high costs of medical services. This program seeks to bring this to an end.
References
Blokdijk, G. (2007). Project management 100 success secrets: Gerard Blokdijk.
Fielding, J. (2009). Healthy People 2020: Improving Our Health Futures. Public Health Institute Web Forum, 10(2), 1-34.
Jiene, K. (2011). Healthy People 2020: A Society Free From Disease. Journal of Health, 13(5), 1-68.
Plunkett, J. W. (2008). Plunkett’s health care industry almanac: 2009. Houston: Plunkett Research.
Wolper, L. F. (2004). Health care administration: Planning, implementing, and managing organized delivery systems. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.