Health Insurance Essay Paper

Discussion: Presidential Agendas
Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen has a stake in healthcare policy decisions. Hence, it is little wonder why healthcare items become such high-profile components of presidential agendas. It is also little wonder why they become such hotly debated agenda items.

Consider a topic that rises to the presidential level. How did each of the presidents (Trump, Obama, and Bush) handle the problem? What would you do differently?

To Prepare:

Review the Resources and reflect on the importance of agenda setting.
Consider how federal agendas promote healthcare issues and how these healthcare issues become agenda priorities.
By Day 3 of Week 1
Post your response to the discussion question: Consider a topic that rises to the presidential level. How did each of the presidents (Trump, Obama, and Bush) handle the problem? What would you do differently?

Agenda Setting

Health insurance is a topic that has typically been at the top of health policy agenda for American presidents even as they seek to achieve universal health care access. That is because the majority of the electorate are concerned about health care access. As a public health concern, health insurance remains a federal government agenda with the expectation for oversight and direction. Health Insurance Essay Paper The USA has a federally administered public health insurance marketplace. It is for this reason that health insurance is discussed at the presidential level since the president heads the federal government (Glassman, Giedion & Smith, 2017).

President Trump has approached the issue of health insurance through seeking to increase the choices available to Americans and transparency so that each individual has greater control over health care and can make choices that best fit their needs. Also, he intends to use Health Reimbursement Arrangement to ensure that employers help their personnel pay for the cost of insurance should they opt for the individual market. Overall, his focus is on enabling Americans to have greater control over their health insurance choices (White House, 2019).

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President Obama considered health insurance a necessity. His Obamacare policy required that every American get health insurance. This forced health and young people to pay health insurance through instituting a penalty tax against those who did not purchase insurance. In addition, the policy allowed individuals to choose a suitable plan without having to follow the employer’s plan. Americans could choose between purchasing private insurance coverage or choosing the government run public insurance option. Besides that, Obama administration expanded Medicaid funding to provide subsidies for persons whose earnings previously exceeded the Medicaid qualification threshold but could not afford insurance premiums. Obama’s approach to health care ensured that the federal government could pool the uninsured together thereby reducing inefficiencies and lowering insurance prices so that insurance risk was reduced (Amadeo, 2020).

President Bush focused on making health insurance coverage more affordable through initiating limited expansions on the public health programs managed by the federal government. In addition, Bush administration reinforced the capacity of the private sector to improve medical services delivery and expand health coverage through offering health care tax credits for lower income Americans. This policy was targeted at improving medical services quality, delivery and financing. Besides that, the administration made provisions for direct health plan competition across state lines with the intention of creating large national pools that would reduce insurance administration costs. The main achievement of the policy was increasing private ownership and personal control of health insurance policies.

Concerning the issue of health insurance, the three administrations should have applied different approaches. The right policy would shift away from public health insurance and instead move towards mainstreaming low income persons into private health insurance. The decisions made by the three administrations have caused private health insurance coverage to decline while public health insurance coverage expanded, all signs that the federal government would be burdened by a large recurrent expenditure to cover these costs. This is hardly sustainable and ends up compounding the existing problem. Mainstreaming low income persons into the private health care system, as has been suggested, would not only reduce the government’s financial burden but would also give American’s greater choice and significantly reduce the number of uninsured persons (Glassman, Giedion & Smith, 2017).

References

Glassman, A., Giedion, U. & Smith, P. (2017). What’s In, What’s Out: Designing Benefits for Universal Health Coverage. Center for Global Development.

Schaefer, N. & Moffit, R. (2004, Oct. 12). An Examination of the Bush Health Care Agenda. https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/examination-the-bush-health-care-agenda

White House (2019, Oct. 3). President Donald J. Trump’s Healthcare Agenda Puts Seniors and American Patients. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-healthcare-agenda-puts-seniors-american-patients-first/

Amadeo, K. (2020, Feb. 13). Obama’s Health Care Reform Plan: How Insurance Companies Changed Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan. https://www.thebalance.com/obama-s-health-care-reform-plan-3305753 .  Health Insurance Essay Paper