Affordable Health Care in the US

Affordable Health Care in the US
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Affordable Health Care in the US
Problem Identification and Definition
Access to affordable healthcare in the US is a systematic inequity that needs urgent solutions. The affordable healthcare program was formulated to promote equal quality medical care, unfortunately, the health systems have been experiencing healthcare barriers that render the goal unachievable. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) polling, health care is expensive, and a majority of U.S families struggle to meet the financial obligations attached to it such as insurance and care seeking. Additionally, a prediction done by Deloitte indicates that the U.S. will likely spend over one trillion by 2040 as a result of barriers to accessing affordable healthcare, especially on diseases that require more finances on management such as heart diseases, cancer, and diabetes (Montero et al., 2022). Affordable health care is so significant as human life is incomparable to any amount of finance, yet affordable healthcare puts the cost of life at risk. Further, understanding the problem first requires understanding the challenges associated with it as explained.
The insurance coverage is inadequate which majorly contributes to the lack of affordable healthcare due to affordability. One, raising the finances to pay for an insurance cover is challenging yet the insurance cover does not fully compensate for all the diseases, rendering it insufficient to citizens. Some of the medical bills that citizens avoid are not just necessary but important, for instance, dental care, preventative screening, and pediatric appointments should be fully covered to raise a healthy family. The impact is felt greatly later in life as citizens end up with the burden of managing chronic diseases. The KFF polls specifically reported that at least half of the American adults cannot meet the healthcare costs as some have even spent a year without medical care such as dental care (Montero et al., 2022). The Medicare insurance cover does not cover all the services and as such citizens aged 65 years and above do not afford crucial services such as prescription drugs.
Additionally, stigma and discrimination of citizens from underserved communities and people of color limit their access to affordable health care. Patients are limited to services from facilities with standard equipment use to stigma on their sex, race, sexual orientation, race and immigration status. Surprisingly, the medical staff and clinicians have also expressed the stigma to patients thus killing the morale of the citizens to seek specialized support such as hormone replacement therapy or mental health services. Also, patients from rural areas experience a shortage of healthcare professionals (Montero et al., 2022). The Association of American Medical Colleges estimated that by the year 2034, the industry is likely to have a shortage of 124,000 doctors in all areas of clinicians, nurses, and technologists.
Possible Options to Address the Problem
Despite the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) the US still hasn’t been able to resolve the challenges as the number of citizens without insurance...