Blog 5: The Future in Healthcare

The United States of America is currently in the process heading into the second year of a four year plan of the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As these couple years pass us by, everyone in America will finally experiment the joy and woes of having healthcare coverage. Many will conclude that Barack Obama had done a great job implemented a universal healthcare package, and many other will conclude that Obama have put our economic status worst than before. No matter how well or worst our economic is in the United States, the healthcare coverage will impact every individual in some way. In this blog, there will be predictions on topics such as, healthcare with people, healthcare within the healthcare system, healthcare with politics and economy. No matter where our country may be heading into, healthcare is a topic that will constantly be changing, so will the reform.

The one number factor of Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is to affect  all of the people in the United States. The people that are included are not only American citizens or legal aliens, but for all people who are physically residing in the United States. The breakthrough is everyone may have the opportunity to purchase health insurance coverage at a very low rate or through employers. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, two groups in particular have benefited. People with existing medical condition, also known as “Pre-existing condition patients,” now are able to be insured by all medical health providers and private health insurance companies. This is an actual requirement by the act, because the law had made it illegal to turn down this group by no insuring them with a plan. In addition, young adults are now able to be medically insured by their parent’s health insurance until the individual reaches 26 years of age. However, the particular young individual must qualify as a full time student and similar requirements. This is a significant breakthrough, because the pre-existing condition patients and the young adult are the one makes up more than 70% of all uninsured medical cost. With such implement in place, we can soon see a decrease of uninsured medical visits, and have an increase in successful recovery rate. Most importantly, these two groups of people will have health insurance during their most fragile point in life. This is one of many pieces of the Affordable Care Act that will not be reformed in the future, because during the Clinton’s Administration, Clinton proposed young adults to be covered under their parents until age 23. In addition, during Clinton’s administration pre-existing condition patients with terminal illness must also be treated without the cost to the patients. Hence, Clinton’s precedent guidelines were not reform but instead were ratified to become more beneficial to the people. Similar ratification can be seen if there may be another reform in the future.

Another factor that may have an enormous impact due to the Affordable Care Act is for the healthcare providers. The healthcare providers consist of the nurse, doctors, and similar service personnel will be highly impacted. In this country there are a limited of healthcare providers that can provide all the type of need from patients. On top of that, the number of nurses and doctors are at a shortage and are brutally overwhelmed. Therefore, with such act in place and providing medical insurance coverage for all individuals, there will be a sharp increase in services. There are statistics that shows every nurse is responsible for at least three to five patients at a given time. However, a prediction claimed, nurses will be responsible up to eight at given time due to the newly implemented act. Similar statistics shows doctors will be responsible to care for at least 15 patients while the average prior the act was at eight. This is a problem for our society, because overwhelming doctors and nurses will eventually decrease their judgments and their ability to have a long working life span. To simplify, there are a shortage of medical staff prior to the act, and with the act now in place, there will be a significant shortage, beyond what is already being experienced. On top of shortage of staff, medical sites, such as emergency room, hospitals, and clinics; will be over capacity Since there are an increase to the number of patients being accepted into medical health insurance, majority of the patients will take the opportunity to use their coverage to the maximum. Hence, the number of patients and usage increases, the facilities and staff will continue to remain the same. With such conclusion, patients will have to deal with delay in service, accuracy of service, and most importantly the attention of service. This is the future that is being predicted for the healthcare system and there will never be a point where medical staffs exceed patients.

The last factor consists of the government, politics and economy. This is one of the hardest factors to predict, because of many co-existing elements. Nevertheless, the healthcare reform is influenced by all of these factors and in return, the reform will have an impact on these factors. Now that the Affordable Care Act is half way implemented, we can see the government is seeking legal help to sort things out. The judicial branch is debating rather or not if the Affordable Care Act is constitutional; as least on some of the critical topics, such as, competitive health insurance cost, and limitation on insurance companies. This is an issue that will either favor or break the Obama’s Administration, because without all parts of the Affordable Care Act, Obama will not have a successful re-election, or at least as strong. In other words, if this act is claimed to be unconstitutional, then the act will no longer be implemented and the healthcare policies will be reverse to the last original status. However, in my prediction, the act will be claimed constitutional and will lead America into a universal healthcare for many years. Although I predict that the Affordable Care Act will the leading universal healthcare for many years to come, it does not prevent future presidents, congress, and parties to debate for a better healthcare acts. It will be less likely any of these implemented law to be overturned or be eliminated. However, there can be a possibility where some of the less important topic of the affordable care act be eliminated to save money. The last topic is economy, and everything revolves around our economy.  As we can see, Obama’s healthcare reform came from the peak of our harsh economic time. During the harsh economic time, many people are in favor of low cost and free services. Hence, the Affordable Care Act is one where many people will love to be part of. However, the Affordable Care Act is taking a toll in our economy, especially during the crisis in California budget. The future of the economy is unknown, but many people argue our economy is gradually improving. In conclusion, this newly implemented healthcare reform will continue to be debated among our government, and politicians, while the economy continues to proceed in the southward hill.  

It is hard to determine rather or not something will happen, especially things that are created from the government level. With the healthcare reform, we can predict the overwhelming work load and the significantly increase in population for the healthcare providers. This is in result to the current crisis that has haunt the healthcare systems for years, and will continue to be overwhelmed. However, the main question that still persist; will our economy adjust to the newly implement healthcare law, and is the newly implement healthcare law constitutional. There cannot be a clear cut answer of yes or no, and there is no say what we will see. Hence, we can only predict what people can control such as the ratio of medical staff to patients; and not what we cannot, such as politics and their chess game. 

Shomaker, S. (2011). Preparing for health care reform: Ten recommendations for academic health   centers.Academic Medicine , 46(5), 555-557. Retrieved from             http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2011/05000/Commentary__Preparing_for_H     ealtcar            e_Reform__Ten.11.aspx

Health care crisis. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

Cohen, T. (2010, March 23). Timeline: When health care reform will affect you. Retrieved from             http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-23/politics/health.care.timeline_1_prescription-drug-plan-health-      care-doughnut-hole?_s=PM:POLITICS