by: Christine Zafra
Development in the healthcare industry have helped us prolong and improve the quality of lives. Though there has been any advances, there are still about 47 million Americans, including 3.8 Million Floridians who don’t have the insurance they need and therefore don’t have the chance to use many of the medical advances available. In fact, it is the No. 1 obstruction in accessing health care and many people die because of this. Most of the reasons are actually due to financial. The government is fast to respond to their by giving away national health care, but the questions that arise are: are they fast enough and what will they do with the 47 million who are uninsured?
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A health policy is more of a wide plan that helps cover all hospitalization charges in case of sickness or disease. The insured individual can claim a policy up to the value of the sum being insured. The health plan comes in variety from which you need to pick up and choose the scheme the suits your needs.
by: Christine Zafra
When it comes to services offered, insurance companies should be transparent about their coverage (transparency and accountability work hand in hand). The new House Bill 1385 allowed all the insurance companies from all states to put up their company profiles, services offered, coverage and the like in one single website. Obviously, since the website is on the internet, people from all parts of the United States can access it therefore, compare insurance prices and coverage. This website can actually promote healthy competition amongst insurance companies.
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by: Christine Zafra
Are the government officials inefficient or is the system incurable? That was the question we’ve tackled sometime in our class. As a political science major, we’ve been dealing with government issues almost everyday of our lives.
But we realized something: these things are intertwined and are dependent on each other.
Rep. Dan Morrish of Louisiana made freezing of insurance mandates possible. However, this legislation was simply ignored by the Legislature that approved it. Louisiana now has a total of 24 mandates in line, each creating an additional expenditure to healthcare policies in Louisiana.
Photo taken from http://www.mtgfoundation.com
by: Djai Tanji
A short term health insurance plan provides coverage for accidents or unexpected and sudden illness. It offers coverage for 30 to 180 days, but there are plans that will also cover you initially until 12 months. If your short term needs run longer than the coverage you can normally renew the plan but never expect for an extension after a year. A short term health insurance plan has benefit limits and it is required to cover an initial deductible and to make necessary co-payments. You will certainly be allowed to choose from the selection of doctors, hospitals or some other health-care providers. To submit and apply for short term insurance, you can send it via email and you may pay via check or credit card.
By the looks of it, nothing is non-political anymore. In fact, even health insurances are now bombarded with controversies that are ranging from individual rights, government authorities, to maximizing quality of the health care benefits.
The right to health care has been practiced by practically every country in the world, though government regulations and authority derails the trend of having this implemented in full throttle. Part of the failure to practice this right is the politics of amount of government subsidy to the health care expenses.
A part of this government authority also mandates that everyone get the same health care benefits, as with any tax. This is disputed because insurance companies would practically not even reach breakeven should it occur, since they shall also cater government employees, and even those who could not afford comprehensive premiums.
However, it is imperative that should anyone feel like buying health insurance coverage, he should be aware of the regulations, conditions, and other necessary things the contract must require of them in order to avoid trouble in the future.
Health insurance is one way of doing injury cover should an event occur requiring some medical attention. Other forms of injury cover involve worker’s compensation, damages, and personal injury service.
Other than the health insurance, other forms of injury cover are considered to be the insurer’s source of medical cost coverage. The insurance companies account for this in their computation in their coverage, taking the form of copayments and coverage limits.
Through this, insurance providers are not ‘abused’ and that the cost of medical services can be anticipated. As a result of this cost anticipation, more people would be able to avail of the insurance all at the same time.
Health economics is a very unfamiliar subject even to the insurance providers. This is a branch of economics which basically deals with the scarcity of the supply and demand for health care and insurances in a certain place.
One focus of health economics is determining and analyzing the health care markets. These are the five health markets that affect the whole industry of health insurance:
* Health financing market
* Physician and nurses market
* Institutional Writer’s Market
* Input factors market
* Professional education market
The equilibrium of these five markets is important in order to sustain a well-balanced health and health care market.
The health insurance industry is in boom these days but these companies face a great deal of problems, two of which basically determine the future of their businesses. These two problems are what they call the adverse selection, and the ex-post moral hazard.
The problem of adverse selection arises from the limited number of the insurance’s target market. Over the years, they have seen that the pool of clients they get are usually those that are most likely to use it—the unhealthy people. Since there are people who consider themselves “healthy” (as per personal standards), they see health insurances as unnecessary expense. This notion pushed the industry into a breakeven, hence, having them make the decision to inform people of the benefits from having insurances stashed away.
The ex-post moral hazard on the other hand makes the insurance provider hold back in getting into deals. A moral hazard means involving a third party to shoulder the cost of something in which the other two parties had decided without consulting the said party. An example of this would be conducting a series of tests that would certain the diagnosis of the doctor. Doing this will save the doctor from a malpractice suit and the patient getting a more comprehensive treatment, all the while the insurance provider being burdened by extra costs not covered by plan the insurer purchased.
Should these two problems continue to impede the providers from getting past the breakeven, chances are that the industry will decline.
Recent studies show that the prices of health care insurance plans have been gradually increasing over the years. This price increase is driven by virtually endless number of factors, but the most noticeable driver would be the increased utilization of the policies.
As the consumer demand for health insurance increase, so does the utilization of this. Although the companies have anticipated that these insurances will be used at one point or the other, what they did not foresee was the simultaneous usage of these insurances.
As it is, people in developed countries live longer. They acquire services and have access to facilities to prolong their lives because the expenses were shouldered by the health insurance coverage. Furthermore, the fast-paced advances in the field of medicine require high modes of payment as well.
Although the reason above is unavoidable, this other one is: lifestyle. Increase in obesity by unhealthy food choices (population-based), excessive alcohol intake, smoking (resulting to complications like lung cancer), and the use of street drugs, are only some of the factors being considered as the major drivers for insurance price increase.
Because of this, some people who could not afford the inflation of price will have to resort to the basic insurance policies, or worse, not have any insurance plans at all.