POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE HEALTH CARE INSURANCE CRISIS IN AMERICA
There is a crisis in AmericaÆs insurance healthcare system and it is multidimensional. The United States is facing inadequate funding in the face of increasing demand for services (Taylor, 2001). The number of non-insured or under-insured Americans has now reached 88 million (Tieman, 2003). Clinics are overwhelmed and hospitals are facing a shortage of staff in almost every area but most especially nursing (Wieck, 2003). The purpose of this paper is to examine various solutions that have been proposed to solve AmericaÆs healthcare insurance crisis.
Pollitz and Sorian (2002) state that all Americans should be free to purchase affordable, portable, private health insurance for themselves and their families. They proposed expanding the coverage of Americans through state efforts to regulate the individual market. However, it is also noted that there is a need for a combination of subsidies and market reforms. Through these measures, the authors feel that insurance coverage can be expanded to literally millions more Americans than are covered today.
Another way to move toward a resolution of the healthcare insurance crisis is to lower insurance through lowering the general healthcare costs; this, according to Jenicek and Stachenko (2003), can be done by keeping more people healthy. Specifically, the authors note that one of the single biggest contributors to the high costs of healthcare consists of long and/or chronic illnesses and diseases. These can be seriously reduced through strong health protection, health promotion, and disease prevention programs and practices. While these strategies are currently practiced in the United States, the authors point out that there are deficiencies in the delivery of preventive care which need to be attended to. It is noted that if these problems can be resolved, these strategies could make even stronger contributions tow...