Medicare State in the United States
Managed care is a term used in the United States it refers to the strategies that are adopted to ensure that health care is affordable to all by providing it at reduced costs. The managed care strategies also ensure that the health care is of the highest standards possible. There are various ways in which the costs in health care are maintained at the minimum. Both the government and private health care provider’s partner to ensure that health care is provided at a low cost. The term managed care in United States is taken to include all the systems that reduce unwarranted heath-care costs. To reduce the costs in providing health care, the physicians and the patients are given economic incentives in order for them to choose health care system that is less costly. The government also offers incentives for patient to use outpatient surgery which is less costly as compared to inpatient surgery (Kongstvedt, 12).
Essentially, the managed care came into existence after the enactment of Heath-Maintenance-Organization-Act in the year 1973. The managed care was popular among the players in public sector but of late the private organizations have embraced the idea of managed care. The popularity of managed care however is diminishing due to the fact that it has failed to meet the objectives that instigated it establishment which is the reduction in cost of health care. There is heated debate by both the proponents and critics of managed care when it comes to the quality of health-care delivery in the United States (Kongstvedt, 15).
The managed care in the United States has elicited ethical issues in the provision of health care services. According to the research that was carried out in the year 2004 by Kaiser-Family-Foundation, it showed that the managed care is reducing in popularity among the Americas. According to those polled are of the opinion that the time the doctor spends with the patient has decreased significantly and thus jeopardizing the quality of the health care in United States. It is also almost impossible for those who seek specialized treatment to see specialists according to those polled. It was also revealed that the managed care has not met its objectives of reducing the cost in health care thus making the whole system a failure (Jensen et al, 56).
There are various health care reforms that the government of America has embarked on that will have an impact to the managed care. One of the most important reforms is that of health insurance. The health insurance refers to the systems either privately or publically owned that are geared towards reducing the cost of health care. Health care insurance is meant to ensure that all people can access health care by making if affordable to all. The health insurance ensures that all Americans can access health care regardless of their race and social status (Boychuk, 231).
The health insurance reforms ensure that the insurance companies are held accountable, the costs of health care is reduced and that the quality of health care is not compromised as a result of low costs in providing the health care. The health care insurance is seen as an improvement of managed care as it aims at educing the costs in accessing the health care. Health insurance reneges from managed care in that quality of health care is not compromised as it is the case of managed health care. In health care insurance, ever member of the society contribute toward affordable health care to all Americans. The Americans therefore can afford quality health care that would be impossible to access with health care insurance (Boychuk, 96).
Works Cited
Boychuk, Gerard. National health insurance in the United States and Canada: race, territory and the roots of difference. Georgetown University Press, Washington DC, 2008.
Jensen, G.A, Morrisey M. A & Liston D. K. Health affairs, at the intersection of Health, Health care, and Policy. Health Affairs, 16(1), 125-136.
Kongstvedt, Reid. Managed care: what it is and how it works., Jonnes & Bartlett Learnng, Ontario, 2009.