Weighty
Matters 101
Social Issue: Healthcare
Health care, or healthcare, is the
treatment and management of illness, and the preservation of
health through services offered by the medical, dental, complementary
and alternative medicine, pharmaceutical, clinical sciences (in
vitro diagnostics), nursing, and allied health professions. Health
care embraces all the goods and services designed to promote
health, including “preventive, curative and palliative interventions,
whether directed to individuals or to populations”. Wikipedia
The healthcare industry includes establishments ranging from
small-town private practices of physicians who employ only one
medical assistant to busy inner-city hospitals that provide thousands
of diverse jobs. The healthcare industry consists of about 600,000
establishments; they vary greatly in terms of size and organizational
structure.
Healthcare reform is a pressing social issue in the United
States, and this decade, in a new century and a new millennium
has seen the issue grow ever more pressing as the population
of the United States ages, and the baby boomer group - the pig
in the python - has just begun to hit retirement age.
The problem of medical costs is so pervasive that it involves three
different policy crisis: the escalating unraveling of employer
provided health insurance. the plight of Medicaid, an increasingly
crucial program that is under fiscal threat, and the
concern for health care's costs on the long term solvency of
the federal government
Over 60% of adults ages 50 to 64 who are working (or have a working
spouse) have been diagnosed with at least one chronic health
condition, such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease,
high cholesterol, or high blood pressure, according to a report
from The Commonwealth Fund. The report also says that
one-fifth of older workers and their spouses -- 7 million Americans
-- either have no healthcare insurance or have been uninsured
at some time since age 50.
The report also found that about 6% of insured older adults in
working families, or 1.8 million people, are underinsured; their
healthcare coverage does not protect them against medical expenses
that are high relative to their income., and that one third have
medical bill problems or accrued medical debt; nearly one-quarter
(23%) said there was a time they went without needed medical
care because of cost.