Medicare Blog

what are the two main concerns that dominate the debate over medicare reform policy?

by Lavern Torphy Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago

What is the role of health care coverage in American politics?

 · Medicare clearly must be reformed. The only issue under debate is how. A fundamental flaw of the Affordable Care Act is that it diverted more than $700 hundred billion dollars out of a badly...

What are the different types of health care policy issues?

 · To enact real Medicare reform Congress should: Ensure a maximum number of choices and competing plans instead of limiting the number of potential plans through a competitive bidding process; Not ...

How can policy makers lower the cost of health care?

 · The debate over funding health care for the elderly is a debate over control of billions of tax dollars. It also represents a pivotal battle over the direction of federal programs. Medicare is in ...

What are the challenges policymakers face in delivering public health services?

What two main concerns dominate the debate today over Medicare reform policy? Answers: 1. Decrease spending; cover children ... Decrease spending; provide comprehensive coverage Question 4: How was the Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS) system designed to curb escalating health care costs? Answers: 1. By providing a general fee schedule ...

Which of the following is the main concern of health care policy quizlet?

Which of the following is the main concern of health care policy? D) Curtailing medical research until quality of care issues have been resolved.

What is the main function of the allied health professional in the Teamlet model group of answer choices?

HTHS 302AB6. What is the main function of the allied health professional in the Teamlet Model?Be a health coach.7. Which of the following is not incorporated in the Connected Health Care Model?A health coach and coordinator8 more rows

Is the US health care system centrally controlled?

The United States has a far less centralized but still highly regulated system in which health expenditures are roughly equal from public and private insurance. The system is characterized by its unique private components: more than 200 million Americans, including most seniors on Medicare, use private insurance.

What is the term for the reciprocal effects of many factors that people have little or no control over?

the reciprocal effects of many factors that people have little or no control over is termed. vulnerability. the rapid and cumulative physical and emotional changes that characterize childhood is called. developmental vulnerability.

What is one aspect in which managed care differs from conventional insurance?

What is one aspect in which managed care differs from conventional insurance? Most Medicare beneficiaries receive their health care through managed care plans. In which type of utilization management is a primary care physician's opinion necessary in referring or not referring a patient to a specialist?

What has been one of the main issues in Massachusetts since the implementation of the health plan in that state?

Two main concerns expressed by citizens in Massachusetts since the implementation of the health plan include cost and waiting times to see a physician. An understanding of the forces of future change can help health care executives in developing strategies for their organizations.

What are the arguments against universal healthcare?

Beyond individual and federal costs, other common arguments against universal healthcare include the potential for general system inefficiency, including lengthy wait-times for patients and a hampering of medical entrepreneurship and innovation [3,12,15,16].

Which country has the best healthcare?

South Korea has the best health care systems in the world, that's according to the 2021 edition of the CEOWORLD magazine Health Care Index, which ranks 89 countries according to factors that contribute to overall health.

Is Medicare centralized or decentralized?

Medicare is a federal program. It is basically the same everywhere in the United States and is run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the federal government.

In what two 2 ways can mental illness affect a person's cognitive ability?

The literature reviewed suggests that cognitive deficits are core features of mental health conditions such as schizophrenia and affective disorders, including bipolar and depression. Cognitive impairments may include problems with attention, memory recall, planning, organising, reasoning and problem solving.

Why is it important to monitor mental health and wellbeing issues risks and protective factors in the community?

Risk factors adversely impact a person's mental health while protective factors strengthen a person's mental health and work to improve a person's ability to cope with difficult circumstances.

What are some risk and protective factors that impact children's mental health and wellbeing?

Risk factors were childhood and lifetime abuse, chronic medical conditions, stress and unsupportive relationships, disturbed sleep and multiple births. Protective factors were social support and physical activity.

What is the primary purpose of the ABMS?

The mission of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is to serve the public and the medical profession by improving the quality of health care through setting professional standards for lifelong certification in partnership with Member Boards.

What do you see as the most critical role of an allied health professional?

Their main responsibility is to support the client's healthy lifestyle and independence, whether physical, psychological, cognitive, or social. Allied health professionals work across the spectrum, from primary to acute care. They have a significant role in taking care of people with disabilities.

Which is the correct definition of allied health careers?

The Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions defines allied health as the segment of the health care field “that delivers services involving the identification, evaluation and prevention of diseases and disorders; dietary and nutrition services; and rehabilitation and health systems management.”

Which of the following are considered allied health professions choose all that apply?

Allied health professionals, to name a few, include dental hygienists, diagnostic medical sonographers, dietitians, medical technologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, radiographers, respiratory therapists, and speech language pathologists.

What if we don't reform Medicare?

There are ways to strengthen Medicare, but what if we don't? If we do nothing about reforming Medicare, the most likely choices are to raise taxes on working families or to increase premiums dramatically for seniors. There is no escape. You would have to raise the payroll tax over $1,700 for somebody who makes $40,000 a year or raise the Medicare premiums on senior citizens by 300 percent -- and neither of those options, in my view, can be sold to the American people. You cannot raise premiums on senior citizens by 300 percent, and you just cannot raise payroll taxes by 100 percent. We have to come up with a new solution.

Why is Medicare going bankrupt?

Much of the problem is in the design. Medicare today is designed to increase spending on health care rather than control it. Members of Congress have always tried to ratchet down on the providers; go back and look at projected savings in past budget reconciliation bills. In drafting those bills, Members of Congress said, "We're going to save $50 billion," but they ended up saving very little. The desired savings never did materialize.

Is Medicare Part A complicated?

None of this is going to be easy. There are a whole series of challenges. Medicare is a very complex system. You have Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B and supplemental insurance, as well as a host of big private contractors and supervisory roles played by the Health Care Financing Administration, issuing thousands of pages of guidelines. It is a paperwork monster, but it was designed in 1965.

What is the most important concern among senior citizens?

Again and again, we see that the most important single concern among senior citizens is the cost and availability of prescriptions. Their second concern, after prescriptions, is long-term care. When we talk about a general strategy in health care policy, we should be sensitive to this issue of long-term care and provide greater incentives for people buying long-term care. It is part of our larger health care reform strategy.

Should we treat new enrollees differently than older enrollees?

Some people are afraid of HMOs. New people entering the Medicare system should be treated differently than those over a certain age. Their life experiences are different. This is another practical item to be resolved.

What happened to Medicare in 1996?

Next year, in 1996, the amount of money going into the Medicare trust fund, which is Part A, is going to be less than the money that is going out, for the first time. The Medicare Part A trust fund is paid for, through payroll taxes, by employers and employees. Next year is the first time they will have had a negative figure for the year (see Chart 2). The Medicare trust fund right now has about $130 billion in surplus; in the year 2002, it crosses the line to zero. So it is very easy to see what happens to the fund. It is not just hypothetical; these are real numbers (see Chart 3).

Is Gingrich cutting Medicare?

We are also making progress in explaining what we are trying to do. We are not cutting Medicare spending. Whenever you hear Speaker Gingrich talking, that it's going bankrupt, he notes that we are going to spend more money on Medicare. What we are doing is reducing the growth of spending on Medicare.

Which type of healthcare receives a higher reimbursement in professional fees?

a. Primary care receives a higher reimbursement in professional fees

How many benefits can a Medicare beneficiary have?

Under Medicare Part A, a beneficiary can have an unlimited number of benefit periods.

What is a PPO plan?

A PPO plan is a hybrid between HMO and POS plans.

What did the Rand Health Insurance Experiment demonstrate?

The Rand Health Insurance Experiment demonstrated that utilization could be lowered through cost sharing.

What are some examples of mobile health care?

Telephone triage, hospice services, and home health care are all examples of a mobile health care facility.

What are the issues in health care policy?

Issues in health care policy fall in two broad categories: those related to health care coverage and those related to the underlying cost of health care. Coverage policy addresses where Americans get health insurance, how it is paid for, and what it covers, while policies related to underlying costs seek to reduce overall health care spending by ...

What are the policymakers concerned about?

Other policymakers are primarily concerned with reducing the number of uninsured or reducing the burdens people face from premiums and cost-sharing. These policymakers often support proposals that would broaden eligibility for existing coverage programs or make those programs more generous, even though it would require additional federal spending. Many Democratic presidential candidates have supported approaches like these. Some proposals focus primarily on people who are currently uninsured or face particularly high health care spending burdens, while others support a program like Medicare for All that would commit a great deal more federal funds and insure all Americans through a single federal program.

How can policymakers lower prices?

Alternatively, policymakers could lower prices by regulating them directly. No matter how policymakers aim to reduce prices, they will need to balance the savings from lower prices against the risk of driving prices too low and jeopardizing access to or quality of care.

Why are healthcare prices so high?

In addition, many patients value a broad choice of providers. These and other features of health care markets allow many providers to demand prices from private insurers that substantially exceed providers’ costs of delivering health care services.

How does cost sharing affect health insurance?

Increasing cost-sharing also reduces the effectiveness of health insurance in protecting against the costs of illness.

What is the main challenge for policymakers?

Starting with the volume of services patients receive, the main challenge policymakers face is discouraging delivery of services that provide little health benefit without discouraging delivery of valuable services . One approach is to give health care providers financial incentives to eliminate unnecessary services by paying them based on the overall costs their patients incur rather than the number of services they personally deliver. Reforms like these can reduce utilization, seemingly without harming patients’ health, although total savings have been relatively modest so far.

What are the factors that determine health care spending?

Health care spending is determined by two factors: how many health care services patients receive and the prices paid for each service. While there is broad agreement that some health care services are unnecessary and that the prices of some services are excessive, ...

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