Introduction
Social policy refers to interventions and directives for creating, changing, or maintaining living standards that are acceptable to the welfare of human beings. Policy zero around the social aspects of a community (Heller 78). The policy deals with issues of health, inequality, poverty, welfare, and human services. The main aim of the United States social health care policy is to improve the welfare of Americans in terms of enhancing social security, housing, and education and health care services.
In America, the health care sector is a large and ever growing sector as opposed to all other sectors. The country’s health care expenditure amounts to $2.6 trillion which is 17% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Furthermore, the federal government is responsible for nearly 50% of each dollar incurred on health services due to the increased number of health services such as Medicaid, public and state health, and Medicare which are provided by the federal government.
Social Policy
The United States health policy limits health care funding to Medicaid, SCHIP (state children insurance program), and Medicare. In addition to the above services, the government oversees Veteran administration which caters to the health of veterans, veterans’ families as well as the survivors and MSH (military health systems). In the financial year 2007, a budget cost of 39.4 billion US dollars was allocated to MHS (Smith 1298).
The budget catered for 9.1 people who included duty personnel and retirees alongside their families. Nearly 25% of America’s uninsured people who qualify for these services are still not enrolled, yet covering all people qualifying for enrolment remains both politically and fiscally challenging. This leaves the burden of access to health care delivery to American citizens compelling them to pay private health insurers for the same expenses which are very expensive.
Hitherto, 59% of American residents access health care covers via employers, though the figure keeps decreasing day in day out, and also insurance covers and contributions expected from the works have a great variance (Heller 79). Individuals whose employment does not cater to fro medical cover including self-employed citizens must therefore purchase private medical covers. A case in point is in 2007 where out of forty-five million uninsured residents, twenty-seven million took part in part-time work, and over one-third of them resided in households earning more than $50 000 per annum.
Given all these issues, it is therefore paramount that health policy should be intertwined with other social policies in the United States. Drawing attention to the extent to which the country has lagged in health care delivery systems as well as the promise tagged to the social health policy, it has been estimated that nearly $5.2 billion is spent daily does not produce any investment returns (Smith 1296). For instance, America’s life expectancy is below Chile, Nordic and European states as well as Costa Rica. Within America, the drift in stark health has continued to increase in ethnic/racial perspectives and also in socio-economic perspective.
In trying to combat this challenge, health and social policies must be intertwined. Therefore, universal health care advocacy should be encouraged. Lack of insurance in health delivery services is lethal to the residents and the economy of America. Most of the world’s rich states apart from the United States have come up with clear guidelines of ensuring universal coverage of health care delivery to all citizens as well as a lower cost.
When America waged war against poverty, its Act concerning civil rights as well as the development of CHC (community health centers), EPA (environmental protection Agency), and Medicaid, the discrepancies in socioeconomic status narrowed but these discrepancies however increased during republican politics.
Conclusion
In conclusion, decreasing socio-health policy and merging the health policy with other social policies would improve the health status of Americans thus improving the social-economic status of the residents. Improving the socio-health policy will save much of the cost that has been channeled into health delivery services thus improving the economy of America.
Works Cited
Heller, Graham. UnEqual Lives: Health and Socioeconomic Inequalities. New York: Open University Press, 2007.
Smith, Davey. “Life-Course Approaches to Socio-Economic and Behavioural Influenceson Cardiovascular Disease Mortality.” American Jouranal of Public Health (2002): 1295-1298.