Healthcare Reforms in the United States: A Historical Perspective

Running head: HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

2HEALTHCARE
Response to Discussion post 1:
The 1900s witnessed a revolution of health care reforms within the United States. The
first landmark healthcare policy that was attempted to be passed at this point of time included
the ‘universal healthcare coverage’ policy. The policy making was greatly inspired by the
social welfare acts such as the National Insurance Act of 1911 which was passed in the
United Kingdom at that point of time (Sommers et al. 2017). However, the policy was deeply
opposed by the American Medical Association and they labelled it as ‘Socialized medicine’.
This paved the way to the ‘Early Industrial Sickness Insurance Schemes’ which was
inexpensive and was made available to the workers by the employers. Thus, it can be said
that the presence of the employer based sickness funds had led to rejection of the government
based insurance scheme in U.S when it was already popular in UK.
The two pros and cons of developing a state health insurance policy can be mentioned
as follows (Sommers et al. 2015):
Pros:
 Better affordability of prescription drugs and physician visit
 Coverage over emergency and surgery bills
Cons:
 High premium of coverage makes it unaffordable for the client
 High chances of denial and rejection in other states
The best exchange that could be beneficial for the majority in the state would include the
short-term state based insurance policy. The rationale for the choice can be explained as
the convenient affordability, coverage over major health ailments and most importantly
the validity of the coverage in other states.