Issues and Solutions” Please respond to the following:
Take a position on whether Medicare should cost more for the wealthy. Justify your
position and offer a recommendation.
Assume you were the President of the U.S.A. You are faced with a growing deficit, an aging
population, and an expanding population. Outline the type of medical insurance plan you
would support and advocate for. Elaborate on how such a plan would begin to mitigate the
deficit issue and the population trends.
“Reflection” Please respond to the following:
Health care is a major issue for the U.S. What concept would you describe as being the
most significant in helping you better understand your own thoughts on the health care
systems and or care?
Discuss how the activities of this class advanced your knowledge and ability to carry out
health care administrative tasks.
Introducing sustainable healthcare in US
One of the most contentious issues in United States today is the success of the president
Obama’s initiative on healthcare which has come to be popularly known as Obamacare. It is an
initiative that was a campaign promise and pushed through in order to save the American
taxpayer up to $2 trillion in a period of 10 years (Atlas, 2010). Under the plan, the rich people
are forced to pay more so that the government does not use a lot of money in handling the
healthcare of the entire population.
There are several reasons why the rich and wealthy people are supposed to pay more for
the healthcare. According to research, they are the greater beneficiaries of the healthcare funds
than the average American (Atlas, 2010). One of the arguments put forward is that, the rich
benefit more from the existing healthcare on the grounds that they live longer hence get more
money from the healthcare plan (Fernandezdelavega, 2005). Despite that fact that they contribute
more to the plan through taxes and payroll, they are also the chief beneficiaries of the plan. It is
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also good to note the amounts of money that the rich pocket annually so that the real cost could
be easily understood. Most of the people categorized as rich earn above $350,000, others above
$500,000 and another group about $1 million. In terms of the morality of the actions, it is only
fair to conclude that these people paying an extra 1% to 1.5% of their incomes would do very
little to damage the financial stability of their families and therefore it is equally fair to save the
taxpayer more debt and tax the rich and wealthy people for healthcare (Schroeder, 2013).
Being a president of USA, I would advocate for such a healthcare plan that reverses the
trend of the nation sinking more into debt while at the same time ensuring that it is affordable for
all. The wealthy Americans, though volatile due to political ramifications are the best target since
they cannot only pay for it but because they can afford it (Atlas, 2010). It makes little difference
for a person earning above $1 million paying an extra $5000 to $10,000 annually while the other
option is to increase the taxes on the middle class and the poor who are already overwhelmed
with taxes (Horton, 2010).
Take for example 1% of Americans categorized as the richest. The top 1% earns an
average annual income of $380,000 the average income of the top 5% is about $160,000 (Horton
2010). Taking 1% of the income these people earn, we get that the top 1% would give $3800
each. The 1% population is about 3 million Americans. The figure (3 million) multiplied with the
expected tax ($3800) gives us approximately $11,400,000,000 (approximately $11 billion)
annually. With another round of about 0.7% introduced in the next 5% category which is
approximately 15million and subtracting the 3 million mentioned above, it would be easy to get
billions and billions of dollars from these able people than weigh the burden on the already
overloaded Americans.
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Reflection
Healthcare is a contentious issue especially the criterion in which it is financed. Most
people do not understand clearly how they stand to lose or benefit with the existing or the new
healthcare plan introduced by the president. Therefore it is imperative that the government comes
up with a method of educating people on these very important matters and at the same time save
the economy from sinking further into debt which is only transferred to the future generations.
References
Atlas, S. W. (2010). Reforming America’s health care system: the flawed vision of Obamacare.
Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press.
Fernandezdelavega, C. (2005). Involving patients in their personalised healthcare plan. American
Journal of Hypertension, 18(5), A227-A227.
Horton, L. A. (2010). Calculating and reporting healthcare statistics (3rd ed.). Chicago, Ill.:
AHIMA Press.
Schroeder, K. (2013). Sustainable healthcare. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.