The Role of Government in the U.S. Health Care System

Running head: HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
The Role of Government in the U.S. Health Care System
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HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
The healthcare system is one of the significant domains of U.S. social and economic
system. Maintenance of optimum health is important for the foundation health and well-being
of the society (Kovner & Knickman, 2011, p.4). However, millions of health disparity
increases the need for improvement of the overall healthcare system. Moreover, the methods
or the solutions for addressing problem vary greatly mainly with respect to the role which the
government must play. Proponents of differing approaches at times cast significant emotional
impact, making compromise difficult (Pearcy & Keppel, 2016). The following discussion
aims to analyse the role of the government in the U.S health care system. The discussion will
mainly explore economic issues associated with the comprehensive healthcare delivery. The
analysis of the economic issue in U.S healthcare will help to explore the motion of the current
debate in healthcare market “Is health care a right or a privilege”.
Role of government in the U.S health care
Government plays a central role in ascertaining the private and public balance of the
healthcare system. They can attempt to make prominent influence in different ways. First the
government can determine how the cost of healthcare is financed from public source. The
Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the US has increased public funding but critics claim that this
increase in public funding is marginal. The ACA has also increased the private and public
coverage in healthcare depending on the total number of states and eventually expanded
Medicaid programs. ACA or Obamacare was enacted in March 2010. The three primary
goals of ACA include increasing affordable insurance to comprehensive group of population;
support towards innovative medical care delivery methods and expansion of the Medicaid
program. Affordability is granted in the domain that the law provides its consumers with
special subsidies (premium tax credits) which decreases the healthcare cost of households
whose family income is between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level (Health
Care.Gov, 2018). Expansion in the Medicaid programs has helped to increase the percentage

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HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
of Americans with public coverage by certain additional percentages (Marshall & Bindman,
2016). Marshall and Bindman (2016) highlighted that expansion of Medicaid program covers
health insurance of the adults who have income below 138% of the federal poverty level.
Thus ACA has made successful attempt in reducing the healthcare burden over the middle
class population in the U.S.
Second, role of government is to modulate balance between private and public
ownership of healthcare professionals. However, in the US, there are no significant interests
in changing the private ownership of healthcare (Marshall & Bindman, 2016). Third role of
the government is to alter ways in which hospitals and physicians are organized. In the US,
ACA has contributed significant organisational change with focus on the integration between
medical departments and hospitals (Marshall & Bindman, 2016). Other associated role of the
government in healthcare system include equitable access of healthcare among the vulnerable
population, development and evaluation of technologies in healthcare, monitoring of the
healthcare quality and proper development of healthcare workforce with detailed consultation
from the stakeholders.
Economic Issue in the US healthcare
In spite of having ACA, 16 to 20% of the population in U.S is still uninsured. This
uninsured group of people is required to bear their treatment cost at an expensive rate. With
the significant percentage of people having health coverage, the overall cost of healthcare has
increased and thus creating problem for the uninsured group (Schoen et al., 2013). It is due to
the lack of proper co-ordination between the insured and uninsured individual that access,
affordability and insurance complexicity is in the accessibility in healthcare is increasing in
United States (Schoen et al., 2013). In relation to the economic issue in the U.S Healthcare
system, The Guardian (2018) has recently published a report. The report highlighted that the