America's healthcare system and federal government regulation

American Healthcare and the Federal Government

American Healthcare and the American Government

In generations gone by, medical treatment in America was little else than a local doctor, whose house calls generally were the bulk of the care that people received. Small, regional hospitals existed to take care of surgeries and major medical issues, but in both cases, the options for treatment were limited, and in many cases, patients did not far well. Luckily, as technology has advanced, so to has the American medical system to the point where many consider the American medical system to be among the best in the world. This progress has come with a heavy financial burden, however, turning American medicine into an industry, and like most industries, the federal government has taken up a role. In this research, the federal healthcare agenda will be discussed and explored from several points-of-view in an effort to better understand the many facets of the topic.

Healthcare Becomes Part of the Federal Agenda

Introducing this paper, the assertion was made that American healthcare has become an industry and part of the federal agenda. Better understanding of how this came about requires an explanation of the evolution of the American healthcare "industry," and to look at that requires a glimpse into post Civil-War America, of the late 1860s. In that period, two very important events took place-one in America itself and another in Europe- which set the pace for the birth of the American healthcare industry. Domestically, America entered into a period of economic and commercial advancement that would in retrospect become known as the Industrial Revolution, attracting millions of people from rural areas to urban areas in search of work, which led to the demand for organized healthcare in the cities where industrial accidents and the disease associated with large numbers of people living in cramped areas became commonplace. In Europe, scientific discoveries into the nature of germs helped to develop more medicines which could be offered to the sick- at a price, of course. While during this time, many of the industrialized nations of the world went to a system of nationalized healthcare, America instead embraced the capitalistic model of doctors and hospitals providing care to individuals for fees. At that point, the years immediately before World War I, we see the advent of private healthcare insurance in America- first being purchased by the wealthy, and then offered in many cases as a worker benefit, especially in union workshops. From this point, healthcare seems to have become more of a public issue, and as such, many efforts began in the halls of the federal government to address it.

Proposed Alternatives to Address the Issue

From the time of the "birth" of the American healthcare industry up to the 1930s, government seemed unwilling to take much of a role in the situation. All of this changed, however, in 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt took federal action and established the Social Security Act which, among other things, set up a means by which healthcare needs of those unable to pay for them could be met. Roosevelt also used the centrality of the federal government to establish state-based health departments to address the health needs of those regions, as well as the National Institutes of Health, which once again addressed issues of contagious disease and other public health issues on a national basis.

Since the time of FDR, there have been other federal initiatives in the area of healthcare, many of which were successful and still others that hold the potential to be successful. With this in mind, these initiatives deserve a closer look.

Successful and Potentially Successful Alternatives/Who Developed the Alternatives?

Upon the conclusion of World War II, the U.S. was literally on top of the world, flush with victory and immersed in the belief that anything was possible with a little American know-how. Due to the collapse of many of the economies of European countries, the American dollar enjoyed dominance, giving the U.S. The clout to go in almost any direction that it saw fit. The men and women returning home from battle many times had health issues that required care on a level that had not been seen since the Civil War. Therefore, an effort was being made to pump federal dollars into the construction of hospitals and medical centers in urban and even suburban areas to meet Americans' needs for healthcare. Even with all of this federal intervention, however, the issue of Americans being able to afford healthcare would rear its ugly head time and time again in the succeeding decades. This issue would be tossed about like a political hot potato until the election of President Bill Clinton, when then First Lady Hillary Clinton embraced the issue of affordable healthcare for all Americans and made an attempt to institute a nationalized healthcare system, much like the ones that have worked in nations like Canada and Great Britain. The Clintons unfortunately met with intense resistance to the plan on the federal level, and their system never came to full fruition. Ironically, however, the Clintons did manage to make meaningful change in American healthcare through their proposed plan. The mere threat of federal control over the monopolies that many American healthcare companies enjoy led in many cases to the freezing of rates and improvement of services and allowable care on the part of these private companies, so much so that in the present day, America offers some of the best healthcare in the world.