Future Plans for Healthcare

Okay, so we’ve established that there is a problem with healthcare in America. My question is, “What’s being done about it?” My major interest was in the upcoming Presidential candidates. After all, they are the ones who have to propose a plan to help with this problem. So, here’s what I found out:
According to a website supporting the election of Hillary Clinton for President she has formed a (Health Choices Menu) that will offer new coverage choices for both insured and uninsured Americans. Under this menu individuals will have several options, including; 1) Keeping their existing coverage or access the same menu of quality health insurance that the Members of Congress do, 2) They will be offered of a public plan option that is similar to Medicare. This new menu will offer options that will include things such as Mental Health Parity and Dental Coverage.
Hillary also plans to lower premiums and increase security. She plans to do this by; 1) Reducing the costs of healthcare by removing hidden taxes, stressing prevention as well as focus on efficiency and modernization. 2) Insuring job loss or family illness will never lead to a loss of coverage or excessive cost. 3) Insures that no American will be denied coverage, refused renewal, unfairly priced out of the market, or forced to pay excessive insurance company premiums.
Another part of Hillary’s plan is to promote shared responsibility. The responsibility will be placed on; 1) Insurance companies will not be allowed to discriminate against individuals based on pre-existing conditions or the expectation of a possible illness in the future. Drug companies will be required to offer fair prices and accurate information on medications. 2) Individuals will be required to acquire and keep insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible. 3) Healthcare providers will be required to work with patients and businesses to deliver high-quality, affordable care. 4) Large employers will be expected to provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage. Small businesses will receive a tax credit for offering coverage. 5) It will be the responsibility of the government to ensure that insurance is always affordable.
Another extension of Hillary’s plan is to ensure affordable healthcare coverage for all. Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford coverage. This tax credit will prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of the family’s income. Her plan will also help to fix problems with programs such as Medicare and CHIP to ensure that people receiving aid from these programs will still receive affordable, quality healthcare. As for the retired population, a new tax credit will be developed to ensure these individuals receive proper healthcare coverage as well.
In my opinion, Hillary has proposed a plan that might actually prove a success. As I said before, the biggest problem with healthcare coverage in America is the cost. Under her plan for healthcare she proposes several ways that will ensure high-quality healthcare for all American’s. However, the bigger question in this lies in the fact of whether or not she will truly follow through with her plans if she is elected President. That, however, is something we will just have to wait to see what happens. That's all I have to say about Hillary's plans for healthcare. My next task is to tackle the possible future plans of her opponents...but that is for another day...

There's still hope, at least in Kentucky

I was looking for info on healthcare and I had been finding a lot of information for everyone else, but I wanted to know about Kentucky. I eventually found a couple of sights and articles, but one really caught my attention. It is a website for a healthcare program set up in the state. The program is called "Health Kentucky", this program is dedicated to providing free medical attention and medications to patients. They do this through volunteer doctors, pharamecutical companies, pharmacies, hospitals, dentists, etc. And the great thing is that they have been providing this free service since 1984 to more than 250,000 patients. As you know with anything free there are a few stipulations if you think you wanna get this:

• You have to be between the ages of 19-64
• Be a Kentucky resident
• You can't be covered by any other insurance
• Your income level must be at or below poverty line

So given this does weed out a lot of people, but in Kentucky this still helps so many. I can't believe I haven't heard of this program. I understand too that they cannot offer this to everyone, then it couldn't be free. It's still a start it seems. They always say something is better than nothing, and for healthcare that rings oh so true!

I know what it's like.....

So I was fresh out of high school when I got a call from the Vice Principal. She told me about this job in Mt. Sterling and gave me the contact information in case I wanted to call and ask about it. Well I did and that was 2 years ago. I was filled with excitement when I first got it. I mean everything was new and fresh. My boss told me the only thing he really couldn't offer me was health benefits, well okay I'm 18 I don't need them. Yeah keep dreaming right, that comes due some time. In the first year and a half I didn't need the healthcare, I was fine. But in February, well one day after my birthday I started to feel bad. And I let it go because I didn't want to pay the bills, but it got to the point where I couldn't breathe and I had to go to the emergency room. Yeah good idea now it's gonna cost double. So I get to the emergency room and they give me a breathing treatment and stick this really long wire up my nose. Which hurt like hell, i've seriously never felt pain like that and it didn't make it better that they had to do it twice. Well anyway the visit to the emergency room never helped much. They told me I had a cold and sent me on my merry way, what they don't know is that it was downhill from there for another couple of weeks. But this is not the point that i'm getting at. A few weeks later I got the bills in the mail, they totaled up to $747.00. I was floored and to beat it all off that had to come from my pocket. Seriously people how is a college student supposed to have almost a grand just lying around. Get real! I just think now that if my job had came with the added benefits of benefits I wouldn't have been in that situation. I would have been able to go to the regular doctor in the first place and simply pay a $15.00 co-pay. That would have been lovely. I just don't see how in this day and time with so much technology, but yet so many new diseases being discovered that there are still millions of people without healthcare benefits and no one to help them. It disturbs me that there is nothing I can do short of giving them more money so they can buy it on their own. I wish I had insurance, but I know that there are so many more people worse off than me that don't have it either. So I say to all of them I know what it's like to see those bills and have to wonder how they can expect for you to pay them, and I ask myself how we let this become such a problem, but I keep hoping it will get better. Something has to give eventually right??

What's up with Massachusetts?

I recently found a article from January 2006 that ran in the Boston Globe. It was talking about how the healthcare costs in the state are much higher than those in the rest of the United States. One reason of course is because their per capita income is so much higher, especially than that of Kentucky. Another reason that the article talked about was all the money the state receives from research grants. They receive close to five times what everyone else does in grants. Somehow this doesn't seem fair to me when I know Kentucky has a lot of healthcare issues that we can't take care of because of the lack of funds. James Mongan, the author of the article, talked about how the costs have went down in recent years. This has to be a great relief to them considering that Massachusetts medical plan costs were almost the highest in the nation not long ago. Although the costs have went down for Massachusetts they are rising for the rest of the nation. It is getting harder and harder for people and families to keep coverage. The rising costs are to provide funding for new drugs, treatments, and procedures that will hopefully in the end help society, but as of right now they are only adding more stress to a nation that is already in an economic downturn.

The Real Problems in Healthcare....

Okay, so I wasn't really sure exactly what the problems were with healthcare in America, so I did a little research on the subject at hand. I've found that the biggest problem seems to lie in the rising cost of health insurance. To put it simply, people just can't afford it. According to America's Union Movement the costs of healthcare are rising at 5 times the rate of inflation. Employers aren’t helping matters because as the cost of healthcare rises they tend to shift the higher cost to their employees by making them pay higher co-pays and deductibles. Some employees can’t afford to pay this large amount of money so they just choose not to have healthcare coverage. What really gets me is that it’s bad enough that individuals can’t afford proper healthcare for themselves, but most of these people also have families to take care of. There are approximately 47 million people in America without healthcare coverage, and 8.7 million of these individuals are children. They can’t even afford to get their children treated in the event of illness or injury. Another sad fact about the healthcare crisis in America is the fact that the elderly, people of 65, can’t afford to get the medical attention they need or the prescription drugs they must have in order to live a longer, more comfortable life. What is wrong with America today? The fact that people who truly need help are unable to receive it is a disturbing one. In my opinion, we need to fix this problem before it goes any further and gets any worse because the way things are going it’s only going to get worse for everyone. It’s time that American’s face the reality that there may be a day that nobody will be able to afford healthcare. Do things really have to get that bad before people realize there’s a problem?

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just seeing if it works