The major concern of the modern healthcare sector is the provision of high-quality and effective care to patients with the primary goal to achieve significant improvement and better life. However, the functioning of the given sector gives rise to multiple ethical questions mainly because of the extremely high price of treatment and the drawbacks in the insurance system depriving wide populations of coverage and contributing to the deterioration of the health of the nation. The existence of this problem preconditioned the appearance of attempts to find an approach that would help to satisfy all parties. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was designed and offered with the pivotal aim to eliminate existing discrepancies and establish a new paradigm, however, many ethical issues still exist.
The main idea of PPACA was the expansion of coverage to ensure that all populations will benefit from the use of healthcare services. The share of the uninsured population was high, and the central provisions of the regulation contributed to the reduction in the number of U.S. citizens who did not have an opportunity to use medical services (“Affordable Care Act,” 2017). However, the involvement of private companies to make treatment affordable created a range of business opportunities for these actors. They serve about 10 million clients, but thousands of individuals still do not have the desired health insurance (Field, 2015). Additionally, it gave rise to serious ethical issues.
For the healthcare manager, one of the most important concerns is the transformation of the sector into a business that aims for the generation of income. The use of private insurers preconditioned the appearance of the dangerous precedent as they started to compete to get new clients, and cases of unfair competition or fraud were noticed (Field, 2015). That is why administrative functions of health workers now include consideration of existing options for health coverage to ensure that all patients have a chance to acquire the needed services. At the same time, monitoring of private insurers should also be accomplished to avoid the dissatisfactory result.
Another problem is the so-called socialist transformation of the system. The PPACA states that insurance is not a privilege, but a basic need that everyone deserves and with which should be provided (Kushnick, 2015). The given radical alterations of the system directly impact healthcare workers’ and clients’ attitudes to the services and the existing paradigm in general. In other words, to support the functioning of the Act, managers should be ready to explain the idea of social justice and achieve improved understanding and cooperation among health workers. This task also impacts administrative functions as positive environments should be created.
In such a way, despite the existence of positive motifs and underpinnings of the PPACA, it resulted in the emergence of serious opposition and multiple ethical concerns. The massive involvement of private insurers stipulated the rise of numerous business opportunities that can help to generate revenue. Additionally, many individuals are still deprived of a chance to use medical services because of the problems with coverage. Finally, one of the most radical changes in the shift of priorities from the privileged to the normal status of offered services and the focus on the idea of social justice. For this reason, a healthcare manager should cooperate with clients to select an appropriate private insurer and guarantee that the most suitable and affordable approaches are used.
References
Affordable Care Act. (2017). Web.
Field, R. (2015). The ethics of expanding health coverage through the private market. AMA Journal of Ethics, 17(7), 665-671. Web.
Kushnick, H. (2015). Medicine and the market. AMA Journal of Ethics,17(8), 727-728. Web.