ssignment Content
This exercise does two things! It addresses an ongoing issue in the US health care system – whether we should have a single payer system – AND it effectively ties up the course into a tidy bundle. To consider NHI, we have to consider the entire ‘system’, such as it is! Regardless of how you feel about a single payer system, it is good to have the facts that support both sides of the issue. This exercise gives you the opportunity to explore those and have a good discussion with a classmate about them. As we come to the end of HLTH 6010, this project will allow you to consider all the topics we have studied over the term. You will do this by applying them to the hottest topic around—national health insurance. Many attempts have been made to spell out how a national health insurance arrangement might look in the United States. Since it is hard to discuss the concepts without a specific plan to talk about, we will use a bill that has been fleshed out enough to be introduced to Congress. In January 2009, John Conyers sponsored HR 676: The United States National Health Insurance Act. We have chosen this plan NOT because it is necessarily advisable or even good. We are using it for this exercise because it provides a framework to see what one potential national plan might look like while allowing us to address many of the issues facing U.S. health care today.
Assignment Details
The local Rotary Club has asked you to write an article for their newsletter about a national health insurance (NHI) plan like the one introduced in HR 676. You’ve roped in your colleague to help. There seems to be a debate among Rotary members about whether NHI would solve our health care problems or create more problems. They want to know both the pros and the cons. In particular, the person who asked you to prepare this has included the following issues that members have raised:
Old people will be denied care so they will die sooner
People will get sicker because they’ll have to wait for care
We’ll be assigned to doctors and hospitals and not be able to choose our own
It inappropriately tries to solve the problem of uninsured people who could get insurance if they just got a job, or who could just get the care they need at the emergency room
This is just socialized medicine
The government will be running health care and making all the decisions.
Structure your article in the following format and subheadings (Introduction, Pros and Cons, and Answers to Rotary Issues):
Brief introduction: You must first assure that they know what NHI might look like in the U.S. and why it is such a hot topic.
Pros and Cons: Then come up with an annotated list of advantages and disadvantages for society if NHI were developed. Rotary has specifically asked for a balanced view and a list of 4 pros and 4 cons. List your pros and cons with substantive support and scholarly or professional sources.
Answers to Rotary Issues (address each issue in a separate paragraph): Be sure to address in a little detail the issue of lack of health care because there are so many different opinions about its causes and its effects on society and the system.
You are asked to analyze this bill by explaining it to a lay audience. Chances are you will find things in the bill that you like and some that you hate. We do not ask you to support or reject it, only to analyze it. You may be adamantly in favor of national health insurance or strongly against it. That doesn’t matter. The best approach to this activity is to deal with each provision of the bill separately so that at the end, someone could go back and pick out the aspects you think have promise and those you think would cause problems.
Please write your report from the perspective of health administrators as you take a careful look at HR 676. You need not spend much time on the macro or national level. We’ll leave that to the economists!
You will need to do some reading to develop your list. Be sure to read at least one source that strongly supports NHI and another that strongly opposes it. You may consult other sources. For this assignment, you may need to cite sources that are not generally considered “professional” since much of the support and criticism comes from political sources. Be sure to note biases and acknowledge opinions that may not be based in fact. Though Rotary would likely not print your sources, be sure to include them in APA format within your assignment.
Week 7 Overview
Voice Thread Week 7 Read the following:
Chapter 13, Health Policy
Chapter 14, The Future of Health Care Services Delivery
Blum, J.D. (2006). Efficiencies in health care regulation: Observations near and far. Annals of Health Law, 15(2): 309–319.
Schimmel, N. (2012). Regulating U.S. health care. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/regulating-us-health-care.html (Note: If you like, you can easily find the post to which Schimmel refers and that focuses primarily on k-12 education but mentions health care).
Plein, L. C. (2014). An uncertain federalism: the states and the Affordable Care Act. Journal Of Health And Human Services Administration, 3(350).
Costello, M.M. (2017). Regulating Pharmaceutical Pricing: Why is Europe More Aggressive than the US? The Journal of International Management Studies. 12(1): 42-46 http://www.jimsjournal.org/7%20Michael%20M.%20Costello.pdf
Kaiser Family Foundation. (2020). Public opinion on single-payer, national health plans, and expanding access to Medicare coverage. Retrieved from https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public-opinion-on-single-payer-national-health-plans-and-expanding-access-to-medicare-coverage/
Garfield, R., Orgera, K., & Damico, A. (2019). The Uninsured and the ACA: A Primer – Key facts about health insurance and the uninsured amidst changes to the Affordable Care Act. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.kff.org/uninsured/report/the-uninsured-and-the-aca-a-primer-key-facts-about-health-insurance-and-the-uninsured-amidst-changes-to-the-affordable-care-act/
Stoltzfus Jost, T. (2017). The morality of health care reform: Liberal and conservative views and the space between them. The Hastings Center Report, 47(6), 9-13. doi:10.1002/hast.774
Govtrack.us. (2007). HR 676 (110th): The United States National Health Insurance Act. Retrieved from http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr676
