The healthcare policies on insurance coverage in the USA need to benefit all people. Based on the resources about the modern USA, many low-income individuals, basically immigrants, live unassured by the healthcare insurance program. More especially, the immigrants, both lower and higher-income persons, and individuals living with physical challenges. Besides, the availability of healthcare programs and their viability to the people is a problem that requires urgent solutions. Citizens would take journeys around the country to acquire an insurance program that best suits them. Such steps are taken when the available insurance policies are comfortable compared to what they want. According to Groce’s concepts on health insurance programs in 2020, even the people with better insurance and healthcare programs still live with difficulties. The challenges were based on lucking insurance of their choice; hence they had to struggle as much as they could to find health programs that best suit them. The research paper seeks to discuss insurance healthcare policies as social welfare concept in the USA.
People with the highest range of difficulties with the health coverage program were the immigrants. Immigrants in the USA are people who travel from other states to settle in the country for many reasons. The reasons leading to immigrants include food insecurity, peace instability, and an outbreak of diseases. As the social welfare concepts depict, there is less clarity on the healthcare policies in the country. Such deductions are a result of limited insurance coverage. Many categories, such as the immigrants as documented in the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA), lack access to insurance benefits until the stated period of stay in the country is completed. Furthermore, the ACA requires them to present legal documentation that is not processed as quickly as the situation would require. Such requirements may deny many the opportunity to benefit from healthcare insurance coverage.
As mentioned above, immigrants are the people most affected by the challenges in healthcare insurance. There are many reasons leading immigrants to a vulnerable state, considering conditions. The reasons include limited insurance plans, low education levels, and lower-income levels. Census information on scarcity confirms that many immigrants live below the poverty index (Tarraf et al., 2020). According to the US census research bureau, over 28 million people did not have healthcare insurance. Such occurrence serves as a massive problem in the healthcare sector, having fought so hard to develop policies to help realize solutions to such issues. Many immigrants hardly have education qualifications that help ease insurance development plans. In addition, a lot more are ignorant, concentrating mainly on economic activities to acquire basic needs.
The fewer steps taken on healthcare issues result in many lacking insurance coverages. The urge to acquire insurance benefits faded away, leaving citizens and immigrants less caring about who had and who did not have insurance. By 2021, the percentage of people with healthcare insurance coverage had risen to 91.4. However, citizens aged 19 to 64 were not as insured as those above 64 years (US Census Bureau, 2021). The report confirmed that the immigrants, separated from their spouses, and people with lower education levels were the most affected.
Furthermore, values and beliefs affect matters of social health insurance. The various opinions in American society made it difficult to realize healthcare insurance policies. There were multiple groups with different views and demands on what they wanted (Americans’ Values and Beliefs About National Health Insurance Reform, 2019). The first group demanded that American society be given insurance from Medicare. The other group claimed to retain the existing affordable insurance act, whereas the last group preferred designing a new healthcare program. There was much influence on insurance healthcare programs by the democratic political party. They influenced the push to improve social healthcare programs and procedures.
There should be a provision of health care coverage to each individual. The majority of Americans believe that the federal government should cover the costs of health insurance for the entire population (Jones, 2020). The responses gathered to taste what the American people wanted was overwhelming. A good number of them argued that the government ought to be responsible for providing health insurance to every person. The idea somehow succeeded, for many people benefited from the government insurance coverage programs. In addition, the Democrats propelled the ideology leading to a sizeable increase in the number of people acquiring the healthcare program. Such claims were highly supported by adults, who present 63 percent of the supporters compared to the children and the youths.
Nevertheless, a high percentage of the people of the Republican party disagree with the idea. They claim that such roles are not the responsibilities of the federal government. According to Republicans, the private sector should be given an equal chance as the public to run the program. The majority of the republican members seem to disagree with the democrat’s idea. They urge the government to continue with provisions of programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Varying interest among people and parties leads to the thriving of private sectors in insurance coverage providers. In 2020, the private sector continued to win more people for the insurance program than the public sector. The rise resulted from employment opportunities given by the private sector based on insurance coverage. The idea of job opportunities pushed many people, especially those seeking job opportunities, to apply for insurance programs. They believed it would help them stand a chance during job selection. The private sector faced close competition from the public sector leading to a variation in the number of customers they served. To address the issue, the government introduced many insurance coverages. Among these programs include Tricare Medicare and SCHIP. Furthermore, the government enforced an insurance act that required every person to have health insurance or be penalized. The act led to an impressive increase in immigrant adults with health insurance coverage.
All the citizens had better chances to enjoy the favor of using healthcare insurance programs. Such steps made the healthcare programs multipurpose to enhance service offering convenience. Especially for the immigrants, the government was to ease their process of becoming American citizens by reducing the waiting period. The low-income citizens were given opportunities through a subsidized insurance coverage program. A reduced percentage of the people under insurance coverage resulted from the lower ability of the people to sustain such a program. Persons with lower incomes would seek basic needs rather than insurance programs. Reducing the cost of insurance programs enhanced accessibility, allowing many citizens to apply.
Enacting the insurance healthcare act, ACA effectively led to a notable gain among immigrants. Increasing the number of people accessing the services required makes the procedure easier to understand and more accessible. Such steps lead to individuals influencing others to join. Nevertheless, the challenges to fully realizing insurance benefits among immigrants still prevailed. A well-built program with much easier procedures was necessary for an attempt to discover the full advantage of the healthcare insurance program among the citizens of The United States of America.
References
Americans’ Values and Beliefs About National Health Insurance Reform. (2019). He healthcare for All Colorado Foundation. Web.
Groce, N. E., & Groce, N. (2020). In the US, even those with excellent healthcare insurance plans struggle. BMJ, m808.
Jones, B. (2020). An increasing share of Americans favors a single government program to provide health care coverage. Pew Research Center.
Tarraf, W., Jensen, G. A., Li, Y., Toseef, M. U., Mahmoudi, E., & Gonzalez, H. M. (2020). Changes in Insurance Coverage and Healthcare Use Among Immigrants and US-Born Adults Following the Affordable Care Act. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 8(2), 363–374. Web.
US Census Bureau. (2021). Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2020. Census.Gov.