A nation full of sick people

A nation full of sick people cannot be able to prosper this is because sick people cannot be able to do attend to their daily activities as required of them or efficiently. Healthy persons are able to perform to the maximum and make sound decisions, with that in mind most governments in the world are striving to make health care available to all their citizens. One such country is the United States of America.

Health care is the maintaining and the bringing back to good health through treatment of diseases or by use of preventive measures to avert spread of a disease by qualified and licensed medical personnel. The medical personnel include doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, psychiatrists, and other public health workers.

Legislation

So as to be able to help each and every citizen in the United States of America to be able to afford excellent medical attention, the country has strived to make some reforms in the health sector. Health care being a priority on the 23th of March in the year 2010 the President of the United States Barrack Hussein Obama signed an act known as the (Affordable Care Act) or commonly known as “Obamacare”. The act was meant to ensure that all Americans citizens can be able to afford medical care, even though the Act was meant for the good of all the United States citizens there were some pros and cons on the reforms (Sered, 2005).

Advantages of the reforms

The Affordable care act was able to bring some changes in the health sector such as all American citizens were able to have a health insurance if they needed it. People who are sick or have lost their jobs were still able to have their medical expenses paid by the insurance (Obama, 2008). For persons who were already suffering from various illnesses were still able to benefit from the healthcare services. The cost of health care had risen sharply so the “Obamacare” as it is commonly known will mean the American people will spend less on health care (Starr, 2011).

Introduction of the health care bill meant that the insurance firms that charged very high fees for their services had to reduce their rates to ones that were affordable to many people. The cost of getting medical services dropped significantly and the services improved (Starr, 2011).

Disadvantages

The reforms definitely had to have some negative effects, some of the negative effects included, the introduction of the reforms meant that the government of the United States had to spend a colossal amount of money. It is estimated that the government will have to spend at least $100 billion each year in the first ten years. All American citizens earning more than half a million per year had to be subjected to higher taxes about 1% more, which some considered as unfair. Depending on which side one views it from, the changes in the health care could ruin businesses of doctors who are running private hospitals as people will go to public hospitals because of the improved services (Starr, 2011).

Conclusion

Quality health care should be a priority of all governments in the world, this is because the cost of getting quality health care has become out of reach for many people all over the world and even in America. It is in that regard that the government introduced the reforms. Expensive it may seem at the moment but if it will relieve the American people the burden of health care then it is worth. More Americans will now be able to afford health care insurance, meaning that the firms providing the health insurance cover will have to shape up and improve their services or ship out of the insurance industry. In a nutshell health care in the United States of America will not only be affordable but world class.

Reference

Obama, B. (2008). Change we can believe in: Barack Obama’s plan to renew America’s promise. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Sered, S. S., & Fernandopulle, R. J. (2005). Uninsured in America: life and death in the land of opportunity. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Starr, P. (2011). Remedy and reaction: the peculiar American struggle over health care reform. New Haven: Yale University Press.

The future of the public’s health in the 21st century. (2003). Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press