The healthcare reforms advanced by President Obama in 2010 have a number of similarities with the recent reforms introduced by President Trump. One of the major similarities that are evident between the two reforms is the emphasis on the welfare of the patients and insurance. Although the reforms introduced by Trump are slightly relaxed and do not have serious penalties on uninsured individuals, it has incentives geared towards minimizing the number of those people who are uninsured.
According to Levey and Kim (2017), the reforms focus on reducing the number of uninsured individuals in the United States and challenge employers to ensure that their human resources have a medical cover. However, in as much as the cover appears beneficial to the citizens of the United States, they present a number of ethical conflicts both to the patients and the medical practitioners. It is within this backdrop that the essay explains the ethical conflicts evident in healthcare reforms presented by Obama and Trump care.
In the process of ensuring that the numbers of people who have a medical cover increase, the reforms laid lots of emphasis on patients and little focus on medical facilities. The bias evidenced by the reforms implies that the number of people who have access to healthcare increase at a rate that surpasses the number of practitioners who administer services.
According to Geyman (2015), the ethical conflicts that occasion in the aftermath of implementing the reforms concerns the time taken by patients before accessing services, the minimal time accorded to them during service delivery, and the emotional strain that they experience while waiting for the service. On the other hand, medical practitioners experience ethical conflicts that revolve around service delivery to the increasing number of patients. The practitioners need to change the nature of their service delivery and, in the process, influence the quality of treatment that they accord to patients.
Due to the increased number of individuals accessing the medical facilities, more patients avail themselves at medical centers, a factor that amplifies the number of consumers in need of services from the facilities. Since the reform has little focus on the proportion of facilities and practitioners delivering the services, patients have to wait for a long time before receiving medical attention.
In addition, the patients are forced to minimize their interaction with the medical practitioners who will be in high demand from the rising number of patients. Another ethical conflict that transpires in the aftermath of implementing the reforms is the emotional strain occasioned by the long waiting time. Old, sick, and disabled members of society suffer from emotional challenges initiated by the time that they wait before accessing medical attention. In the words of Levey and Kim (2017), old and disadvantaged individuals suffer if the reforms materialize.
Consequently, medical practitioners also experience ethical conflicts that relate to the high number of patients who need medical attention. Ethically, medical practitioners have to deliver services to patients and ensure that they comprehensively address their challenges. However, due to the rising number of patients who present themselves in the aftermath of reforms, the practitioners have to minimize the time utilized in handling them in the quest to ensure that they attend to the huge demand. Geyman (2015), states that the implication of the huge demand is an ethical conflict, which not only affects the nature of service delivery but also affects the mental well-being of the practitioners. Therefore, the medical system and the stakeholder concerned with the reforms need to restructure the provisions of the reforms and address the bias.
References
Geyman, J. (2015). A five-year assessment of the affordable care act: Market forces still trump the common good in US health care. International Journal of Health Services, 45(2), 209-225.
Levey, N., & Kim, K. (2017). A side-by-side comparison of Obamacare and the GOP’s replacement plan.