Policy Organization and Financing Health Care – WK 1 RESP

You will provided with a topic and 2 responses to the topic. please comment to each response. please provide reference to each response.
Topic information attached
Any clinical example made should be reference to emergency department
Policy Organization and Financing Health Care – WK 1 RESP
Topic – Discuss your position regarding access to and coverage for health care. Are we obligated to provide access to and coverage for health care for all Americans as an entitlement (a right)? Or should health care be considered a commodity that is subject to the influences of economic, social, and market demand (supply and demand)? Be sure to include the rationale for your position in your discussion.
Response 1: Roxanne
I fully believe that all Americans citizens should be provided with complete health care coverage from birth to death. This coverage should include wellness checkups, cancer screenings as well as diabetic and cancer interventions to include medication and homeopathic interventions. I believe that tighter restrictions and qualifications should be applied to other social services like food stamps and financial support to women and children. And rather provide resources to better prepare this population with educational and employment opportunities. Therefore, freeing up exorbitant amounts of misused funds previously used on welfare to now be used for healthcare providing coverage for all citizens regardless of socioeconomic status or influence.
My position on this issue stems for the many years of the chronically ill patients being underserved in our nation. Many of them having to regularly choose between their medications, utilities, housing or food. As we know, Narcan is freely provide to revive a drug user, but a diabetic will require a several thousand dollar inpatient stay in the hospital to stabilize his blood sugars, due to medication neglect. This must change, we need to make our chronically ill patients a priority, but even more so we need to keep our healthy individuals from becoming sick and therefore, health coverage for all would allow those that presently cannot afford insurance to take advantage of wellness care and screenings. This approach would overall improve the health of our country and lessen the financial impact of rising healthcare cost and inpatient hospital stays. Keeping America healthy!
Response 2: Devon
I believe that everyone should have access to healthcare – we just haven’t figured out how to do it right, yet. The NHS is arguably the most successful implementation of nationalized health care at this point, but it has many shortfalls. Wait times for care are astronomical, and when you are able to see a provider, they are it. Second opinions are near impossible to get, and considered a luxury if you can find one. According to the British Medical Journal from December 2020, “eliminating waits of over 52 weeks—162?000 of them at the last count1 (Links to an external site.)—and meeting the broader standard of 18 weeks for elective care will take years, not months”.
From a personal viewpoint, my aunt lives in Scotland. She is elderly, but has never been sickly. She went to an NHS hospital with severe RUQ pain with nausea, vomiting, weight loss, and anorexia. She was seen and diagnosed with gallstones which were obstructing the bile duct and causing pancreatitis, told she would need surgery, and sent home pending an available surgery date. She had the option of staying in the hospital, however due to budget cuts at the national level, she would need to provide her own linens, and family would have to bring her food. They also did not have the staff to support someone in a pre-op status (despite her labs indicating hepatic impairment), so if she needed “cleaning up” family would have to manage that as well. It took 2 months, and a ruptured gallbladder before they took her to surgery. The excuse given was that her age made her a “less than ideal candidate for surgery”.
Unfortunately, this is not the only story like this. When healthcare is nationalized, it is based on numbers and outcomes and cost efficiency, not about actually providing people with quality care.
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Solution
Response 1: Roxanne
Greetings, thank you for considering my interest in your post. I also want to appreciate you taking your time to participate in the discussion. Your post is well structured with good grammar that enables the reader to understand the comprehension. Therefore, I will add a few remarks to your post. This was so thoughtful of you to take an interest in such a sensitive topic. Healthcare access remains an issue to most Americans. Even though there are policies and regulations for health coverage, it is still the main discussion on whether Americans are obligated to access healthcare or if it is just a privilege.
Reforms such as the Affordable Care Act were mainly implemented to facilitate health insurance for all Americans, especially those who cannot afford healthcare services. Although the reform has helped many Americans access healthcare services, it has still not achieved some health criteria like access to quality care (Bauchner, 2017). This shows that healthcare is not a privilege to the majority, who cannot top up their finances and access quality care services. Most health reforms focus on interventions and not necessarily prevention actions. Therefore, the reforms should be implemented so that they lead to the provision of essential health benefits such as access to all healthcare services, especially in chronic illnesses.
Response 2: Devon
Hello, I appreciate your sincerity in helping other readers understand how sensitive this topic of discussion is. I also support your choice that, indeed, healthcare access should be a right for every individual. In addition to your point regarding your auntie’s situation, the National Health Service policy should be regulated and revised to enhance access to health care for all. For instance, the healthcare cost and reimbursement rates should be reduced (Papanicolas et al., 2019). The U.S. population is dominated by older people, requiring quality care to prolong their well-being and enhance their healthy lifestyles. Chronic illnesses among the more aging population continue to be a major crisis in the United States. If the reforms such as National Health Service are not revised effectively, reaching the goals of quality healthcare services to all will remain a privilege and not a right anymore.
References
Bauchner, H. (2017). Health care in the United States: a right or a privilege. JAMA, 317(1), 29-29. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2595503
Papanicolas, I., Mossialos, E., Gundersen, A., Woskie, L., & Jha, A. K. (2019). Performance of U.K. National Health Service compared with other high income countries: observational study. bmj, 367. https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6326.full