Suggestions for improving healthcare insurance

Outline for Policy on Improving Healthcare Access

· Changing eligibility criteria for health insurance to expand Medicaid coverage to include individuals younger than 65 years old.

· Increasing health promotion initiatives to improve coverage of the employees.

· Establish innovative enrollment strategies for individuals without insurance coverage.

· Subsidizing Medicaid and Medicare to make the insurance premiums affordable.

· Allowing access to healthcare for individuals with chronic conditions without healthcare coverage.

· Increasing oversight of health insurance, both government and private.

· Filling in the gaps left for private insurance through programs such as Medicaid.

· Offering incentives to private insurers who offer policies to individuals in rural areas.

Key Terms

Premiums – Monthly payments paid to insurers by customers for the insurance coverage.

Medicare – Medicare is an insurance coverage established to increase coverage for all Americans

Medicaid – Federal insurance plan for individuals who are 65 years and above.

Social Economic Status (SES)– Refers to the income and access or level of education of a population.

Network adequacy standards – health insurance involves increasing participation of providers and specialists to enable ready access to healthcare.

Oversight – Mechanisms the government applies to ensure that the process and activities in insurance, claims, and premiums are administered following standards.

Overview of Legislation

The main challenge in offering access to improve health outcomes at a national level is low insurance coverage among individuals with low social-economic status. Further, the confounded challenge is a lack of awareness that limits the self-efficacy of people affected by challenges such as low income to seek healthcare promptly, lowering the cost incurred instead of seeking healthcare (Meng et al., 2010; NCSL, 2020). The proposed policy aims to increase access in areas disproportionally affected by low SES and accessibility in rural areas. Expanding the Medicaid insurance coverage to cover individuals with inadequate access to coverage is critical to ensure the multiple public insurances across the country to render more opportunities for coverage.

The innovation of electronic means to health individuals subscribe for insurance cover is necessary to meet the national requirements. Therefore, increasing health promotion initiatives is critical to creating awareness beyond making coverage accessible in rural areas and among people with low SES (Tikkanen & Abrams, 2020). It will help reduce the healthcare budget burden in the long term. The management costs for individuals diagnosed with chronic conditions are higher than the emergency care costs incurred when such individuals are admitted in emergencies.

Conclusion