weekly reflection 8

Weekly Reflection 8

Economic access to health services, types of health service organization, the quality of health care, cost, and managed care are discussed in chapter eight.  The United States health care system involves Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance (Cowles, 2003).  Recently, the uninsured population and the underinsured population are growing depending on the area, ethnicity, and employment status. There are different health service organizations such as hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, outpatient clinics and non-profit organizations in America.  One can get the best health care service in America only he or she can afford it.  Despite of the fact that the United States has the best health care system in the world, population health status is lower than some countries like Japan.   It may be because of the shortage of nursing and emergency room stuff, shortage of physicians who tend to retire earlier.  Although the annual rate of increase in health care costs has generally declined, the total health care cost continues to exceed compared to other countries.  To control health care costs, one method called managed care has emerged in the United States.  The chapter also points out about the CEOs of profit-making managed care organizations being awarded with multimillion dollar annual salaries and benefits packages in a nation where about over 40 million citizens have no health insurance.  Cowles believes that we need more health maintenance organization (HMOs) of the Kaiser Permanente type, nonprofit, health care providers because they make their own decisions about choice of  interventions and assume the financial risk of exceeding the capitated prepayment. 

 

Reference

Cowles, L. A. F. (Ed.). (2003). Social work in the health field: A care perspective. (2nd ed.) Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.