HSM 542 Week 7 Discussion 2: International Healthcare

WEEK 7: INTERNATIONAL HEALTHCARE Choose one aspect of international healthcare that you would implement in the United States through legislation or other means? (Be specific with rationale and justification and details about legal and ethical implications of your proposed change.) The U.S. healthcare system is very different than the other advanced countries in the world. There is no uniformity in coverage, not universal coverage and costs are out of control. According to Armour (2019), the number of Americans without health insurance climbed to 27.5 million in 2018, following years of steady declines in the number of uninsured. The U.S. healthcare system is in desperate need of an overhaul and the healthcare system needs to help the rising number of uninsured as well as those facing the rising costs of their healthcare premiums. Many countries (like Japan, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom) have worked to make bankruptcies that result from medical expenses negligible. In the U.S., however, most consumers who declare bankruptcy, do so mainly due to medical expenses. According to Hiltzik (2017), a 2014 survey of bankruptcies that were filed between 2005 and 2013, found that medical bills are the single largest cause of consumer bankruptcy, with between 18 percent and 25 percent of cases directly prompted by medical debt. “Another survey found that in 2013, 56 million Americans under the age of 65 had trouble paying medical bills. Another 10 million will face medical bills they are unable to pay despite having year-round insurance” (Department of Professional Employees – AFL-CIO, 2019). In 2006, the state of Massachusetts enacted the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Bill. It is the only state that has almost no uninsured and this bill predates the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 by several years. The essence of the legislation is a mandate that everyone in the state have health insurance if affordable coverage is available (an individual mandate), an assessment on employers that do not provide coverage to their workers, a purchasing arrangement—the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector— designed to make affordable insurance available to individuals and small businesses, and premium subsidies to make coverage affordable (Holahan & Blumberg, 2006). So far it appears the state has been successful in making health care more affordable and accessible for its residents. For 2017 and 2018, the Massachusetts Health Connector had the lowest average premiums of any Marketplace in the country for 2017 and 2018) Morse Gasteier, Brice & Woltmann, M. (2018). Sources: Armour, S. (2019). Number of Uninsured Americans Rises for First Time in Decade. Retrieved from 81 Department of Professional Employees – AFL-CIO. (2019). The U.S. Health Care System: An International Perspective. Retrieved from Hiltzik, M. (2017). Another Little-Mentioned Benefit of Obamacare: It Has Reduced Medical Bankruptcies. Retrieved from Holahan, J. & Blumberg, L. (2006). Massachusetts Health Care Reform: A Look at the Issues. Health Affairs. Retrieved from