Health Care in America

Delivering Healthcare in America
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Delivering Healthcare in America
Health policy refers to the aggregate of principles, defined and undefined, that characterize the supply of services, resources as well as political factors that effect on the health of individuals. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is often viewed as an ideal answer to the chronic market failure in supplying sufficient access to the health care for the American population. The PPACA just like any other healthcare reform bill has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages of PPACA is that it curbs the rise of health care cost. All insurance organizations are required to spend at least 80 percent of their insurance dividends on health care and other improvements. Moreover, PPACA aims at restricting insurance companies from making significant rate increases. PPACA stipulates that no American should be denied coverage as a result of preexisting conditions and that all insurance plans should cater for ten essential benefits. Additionally, the PPACA aims at making prescription drugs more accessible particularly for the senior citizens.
Although PPACA has various advantages, the policy also has some shortcomings. Firstly many individuals will be compelled to pay higher installments considering that insurance companies will be offering significant benefits while catering for individuals with preexisting conditions. Business organizations have also sought to reduce the working hours of their employees to avoid covering them.

Notably, there’re different kinds of taxes that were developed to help in paying for the PPACA such as the taxes for pharmaceutical sales as well as medical devices. Further, additional taxes also exist for those individuals with higher incomes. Parente, Felman, Spetz, Dowd, and Bagget (2017) predict an increase in the costs of labor for healthcare courses studied within 2014 to 2021, with PPACA resulting to an extensive growth relative to baseline wage increase. This proposes that PPACA will result in short-term provider shortages which in return will result in increasing wages, consequently rising insurance premiums as well as reimbursements.
The primary objective of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is to enhance the efficacy of medication that patients receive. Notably, the tools for the evidence-based medicine have been improved for several years, particularly in the form of clinical practice guidelines. Evidence-based medicine can facilitate the improvement of care while curbing costs and discouraging misuse as well as overuse. EBM guidelines are aimed at representing the best practices as well as proven therapies. According to Shi and Singh (2014), there are various strategies for evidence-based care. Firstly, healthcare managers ought to consistently emphasize the adoption of evidence-based guidelines. Further, ongoing clinical trials should be the basis of evidence-based medicine. It is also critical to observe clinical regulations when using evidence from randomized trials.
Additionally, guidelines as well as protocols ought to be revisited and updated to integrate new scientific evidence when warranted. Financial incentives such as provider payments as well as patient cost sharing should be reconstituted. The current reimbursement strategies employed are not effective as they only focus on units of service. However, these strategies should shift to the payment of possible outcomes along with efficient care. Moreover, enhancement of the computer-based models will improve once the evidence-based medication is integrated to ensure multidisciplinary teams comprising of physicians, nurses and other healthcare staff provide care. It is also critical to ensure that future practice guidelines and regulations integrate economic evaluations to uphold new scientific evidence when warranted.

References
Parente, S., Feldman, R., Spetz, J., Dowd, B., & Baggett, E. (2017). Wage Growth for the Health Care Workforce: Projecting the Affordable Care Act Impact. Health Services Research, 52(2), 741-762. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.12497
Shi, L., & Singh, D. (2014). Delivering health care in America (6th ed.). Burlington: Jones & Bartlett.