Health Care Incentive Act of 2011 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Health Care Incentive Act of 2011 - Essay Example The policies to be enacted by the bill will see the Government of the United States automatically and directly paying for all the medical care that is medically necessary as decided between the doctor and a patient. This is expected to end private insurance needs for such care, and likely transforming private insurance companies into providers of supplemental medical coverage, which shall be resorted to for non-essential care as is the case in the United Kingdom, mostly for such services as dentistry (Colton 22). The national healthcare system is expected to be funded through taxes, monies expected to replace insurance premiums which has been the major justification for private insurance. Individuals advocating for the single payer system of healthcare, including economists, have voiced their opinion that eliminating the companies dealing in medical insurance currently would eliminate their overheads, especially administrative, hence sufficiently reducing the overall cost of health c are, which would enable the uninsured individuals at the moment and every other American citizen to be covered with much ease and even realize a monetary surplus from the program (Colton 23). Colander (65) explains that the bill was initially introduced in 2003. At the time, it had 25 cosponsors. Since then, it has been introduced in each congress but has consistently failed. In one such occasion, the bill was pushed by activists during the debates on healthcare in 2009. The bill was amended and ended up as the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act. This particular bill is expected to be debated then voted upon in February 2012 by the house. People who staunchly advocate for health care with single payer system, as the most appropriate vote and passage of the act have loomed and tried to present the bill as the best alternative to another bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2011. The nationwide debate has been implicitly approved by Max Baucus, who also acts as the leader of the nationwide debate on the bill. Currently, the bill has been referred to subcommittee on health while advocacy for it continues even though its advocates seem to have accepted that the realization of a single payer health care system is yet again a project of the long term, whose realization may take years or even decades. Some of the proponents of the act have shifted emphasis from the effort to enact it as a national law and moved towards enacting the single payer health care systems in the individual states of the United States. The enactment of the single payer systems at the state level is expected to serve as the base for argument to enact it at the federal level. During the 2008 presidential campaigns, Barack Obama had promised health care as one of the major reforms his administration would bring. Despite admitting that universal health care coverage can only be provided by a single payer health care system, he instead favored a plan for more insurance cover age. However, during his pronouncements in 2003 at town hall, Obama’s remarks included promotion for a system of health care that is single payer driven (Boyes 29). The single payer system of health care is based on the value of equality and social solidarity. Primarily, this will be achieved by health care financing, where resources shall be redistributed from the rich to the poor citizens (Newnan 36). In the first place, the financing is progressive with