Cooper Green Hospital and the Community Care Plan Case

Cooper Green

Delivering health care to a population is a task taken aboard by many developed countries all over the world. Even though as an altruistic act, the act of being responsible for the health of the entire community is not an easy job. Along with political and economical barriers, greater barrier comes when the people in the community are not that concerned about their health. In United States of America, there are a total of forty eight million Americans who are not insured. This is surely a shocking amount and it reveals that how reluctant people are when it comes to their health. People would rather have a better shelter over their head rather than have a better health.

The problems seen with delivering health care can arise in every setting where the government takes responsibility. The major concern all over the world includes the growing population and the restricted need for resources. This presents the issue of being able to serve the people in the way that they deserve. In other words, offering the people the best quality of health care. In the year 2008, the government spent a total of 2.4 trillion dollars on national health. (Health affairs, 2009) The public share out of this entire amount was 46%. If these figures are studied while looking at the health insurance providers like Medicaid, Medicaid and other programs, then a total of $810.6 billion or about 34% of the nation health spending was spent. (Health Affairs, 2009) These figures show that the government does try it best but the resources are limited.

Apart from having limited resources, the waiting and the trouble that citizens without insurance have to go through is another problem as well. Waiting rooms are full of people who are no insured and they just walk in hoping to get treated. This puts a burden on the hospitals and doctors and shows that there does remain a problem in delivering health care. As mentioned earlier, the quality of health care does not remain the same when the idea of insurance comes in.

When insurance was not present, people had to look around to see which physician they would choose. The physician was free to treat the patient in whatever setting and then prescribe the management while keeping the economic conditions of the patient in mind. Economic factors were soon replaced by the need to provide the best treatment and medial technology. (Stanley, 1997) Insurances like Medicare and Medicaid were covering the entire costs of the treatment. Patients cared less about the money but more about the quality because their employer was financing the entire cost. Even though this is good, the people who were uninsured were left with high health care prices and a remarkable difference in the quality of health care they got.

The community care plan is made to increase the access to health care better by keeping the appointment more organized and more scheduled. This will reduce the need for patients to wait hours and hours. The patients will have increased access to the facilities and will be treated and diagnosed way earlier. Along with that, the patients will be able to access insurance quality medical care at a lower monthly premium. Along with getting the treatment at the right time, the patients will get the right treatment as well. This would rather be a much more lenient system where the insurance doesn't take over how the patient is to be treated. This plan provides a way for the patient to make their own decision focusing on their own health needs. Also, this system will be just for all the people who are part of the community care program.

A major problem seen with Cooper Green Hospital was the funds that it was taking from the country budget. It was reported that Cooper Green had taken a total of ten million dollars every year from the country's budget. This is a major obstacle in the country's economic performance especially after the bankruptcies that have occurred in the past. (Wright, 2012) The hospital is not funded from any source except the government, and the officials cannot stand to go through more laws. Even though, this hospital provides health care at a relatively cheaper cost, it doesn't provide the best quality. However, many people believe that by closing the inpatient care, the hospital can better use those funds to provide other services to the visiting people. It has been proposed that the hospital be turned into an outpatient clinic and thus other facilities should be taken over. Another reason for change for this hospital arises because there are very good quality hospitals present in other areas in the country. It was also necessary for the health care in the state to be controlled by a proper health care organization rather than commissioners deciding what were to happen in the hospital.