Historical Changes Essay
Amber Johnson
Grand Canyon University: HCA-255
October 20,2019
Professor Kevin Hayes
This study source was downloaded by 100000831988016 from CourseHero.com on 12-31-2021 10:42:31 GMT -06:00
...
Historical Changes Essay
Amber Johnson
Grand Canyon University: HCA-255
October 20,2019
Professor Kevin Hayes
This study source was downloaded by 100000831988016 from CourseHero.com on 12-31-2021 10:42:31 GMT -06:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/52032181/HCA-255-Week-2-Historical-Changes-Essay-docx/
Historical Changes Essay
Many people are without health insurance, due to age, illnesses, and pricing. Starting in
the early 1900s there were many presidents who tried creating a program that funded national
healthcare insurance. After many failures President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the first bill of
Medicare on July 30, 1965 (CMS, 2019). Medicare focused on supporting the elderly, people
who have retired, and low-income families who struggled to provide healthcare insurance for
themselves. Once a program was in place, they needed to figure out how to fund the program.
Medicare receives funds through two different accounts, The Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and
The Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund. These funds come from taxpayers and the
interest earned on the trust fund investments, and funds authorized by congress (Medicare, n.d.).
By 2019 Medicare was providing healthcare insurance for an average of 60.6 million people. In
2017, the amount of spending that was used for Medicare was approximately $705.9 billion
(Anderson,2019). Medicare started with only two parts when it was established in 1965 that
consisted of part A and B. Later, two other parts known as C and D were added. Part C was
created in 2003 and was generally known as the Medicare Advantage Plan. In 2006, part D was
established and known as the Medicare Prescription Drug Act. Being known as one of the
biggest healthcare insurance companies in the country, Medicare has many benefits for those that
are enrolled.
All programs have specific requirements that must be met in order to qualify. The
requirements for Medicare are related to age, disability, income and illness. To qualify a person
must be at least sixty- five or older. If someone is under the age of sixty-five, they must meet
the other requirements in order to qualify. As mentioned above, Medicare covers different
health services, causing it to be divided into four different parts A, B, C, and D. Medicare part
A helps inpatient care, skilled nursing facility care, hospice care, and home care. Part B covers
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Historical Changes Essay
clinical research, ambulance services, and mental health for inpatient, outpatient, and partial
hospitalization care (Medicare, n.d.). These are considered having original Medicare, in order
to receive part C and or D an individual has to already have parts A and or B. Medicare part C
covers the Medicare advantage plans and part D covers prescription drugs, these two are mostly
private plans of Medicare. Before Medicare, there was a lot of segregation that went on in the
hospitals. Medicare was beginning to become popular, that is also when segregation began to
decrease within medical facilities. For health care facilities to receive payment for care for
patients enrolled in Medicare, they had to be a desegregated facility. By requiring the facilities
to be desegregated, it only helped to allow more individuals to receive care from hospitals,
nursing homes, and doctors.
There have been many programs that by the lack of price transparency and quality over
the years have been affected. Transparency exists because of how different hospitals provide
quality of care to patients and how overpriced the service fees for patient care can be. Many
patients can walk into a facility, agree to services, all without knowing the price they are going
to have to pay. This is where Medicare comes to play, while Medicare provides healthcare
insurance for a wide variety of people it also contributed to the lack of price transparency and
quality of care. Even though some patients have Medicare insurance, some places won’t inform
them they may still have a portion of the bill to pay. In many cases, the patient ends up needing
to pay a lot more of their bill then they thought they would. This happens because when a
patient is provided care, the health care provider waits for Medicare to pay its share of the bill
before sending the patient a bill to pay for their share (Medicare, n.d.).
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