Health Care System in the United States

Health Care System in the United States

There have been three main forces responsible for the downsizing of hospitals in the United States. These are rising health care costs, a struggling economy, and a shrinking population of doctors and nurses (Shi & Singh, 2013). The new health care law will affect this trend by providing a large number of people with health insurance. Since these people previously did not have this insurance, they did not see the doctor as often as they should have. This led them to use the emergency room instead, and only when a problem that could have been more easily treated became a serious and significant issue (Dail, 2012; Shi & Singh, 2013). Because these people were uninsured, they also could not pay their medical bills, which placed a heavy burden on the taxpayers (Dail, 2012). Some of that will be eased by the health care law and the changes it will make. It seems as though inpatient care may increase, as well, because some people who really need this care will now be able to afford it.

That is very important, as people were suffering with significant conditions and even dying from problems that could have been treated if they had better (or any) insurance. There will still be plenty of people who do not see the doctor regularly, often because they have a fear or phobia, but for the many who know they need to see the doctor and who want to see the doctor, having insurance will allow them to do so without fear that they cannot pay or that they are going to lose their home or other valuable possessions because of medical bills. Hospitals often close because they lose money. Some of that will be adjusted by more patients having insurance, but hospitals also need to find ways to scale back to the extent that they can still provide good quality care and make a profit. Sometimes, bigger is not always better, and hospital that are smaller and more focused may find that they perform better than their larger counterparts as the health care law takes effect.

There are a number of underserved populations in the United States. One such population is single mothers who often live in poverty while trying to raise their children (Dail, 2012). They are underserved because they often do not make enough to afford health insurance, but they may make too much for government assistance (Dail, 2012). Additionally, they can run into trouble if the father of their children is not paying child support reliably, but this is not the case for all single mothers. The main, current health care program in the U.S. that addresses this population is Medicaid, but there is a "gap" that many single mothers fall into, where they make just slightly above what they "need" to in order to be covered by insurance (Dail, 2012). Because they barely make over what is required for Medicaid coverage, they do not have enough money to pay for their own health insurance, and certainly cannot afford to cover their children. That is the main weakness of Medicaid, because that gap is a serious issue that will be at least partially addressed by the new health care law (Dail, 2012).