Health Insurance Eroding for Working Families: Employer-Provided Coverage Declines for Fifth Consecutive Year

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Gould
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
Working Families ◽  
Public Sector Health ◽  
The Government ◽  
Uninsured Children

In 2005, the percentage of Americans with employer-provided health insurance fell for the fifth year in a row. Workers and their families have been falling into the ranks of the uninsured at alarming rates. The downward trend in employer-provided coverage for children also continued into 2005. In the previous four years, children were less likely to become uninsured as public sector health coverage expanded, but in 2005 the rate of uninsured children increased. While Medicaid and SCHIP still work for many, the government has not picked up coverage for everybody who lost insurance. The weakening of this system—notably for children—is particularly difficult for workers and their families in a time of stagnating incomes. Furthermore, these programs are not designed to prevent low-income adults or middle- or high-income families from becoming uninsured. Government at the federal and state levels has responded to medical inflation with policy changes that reduce public insurance eligibility or with proposals to reduce government costs. Federal policy proposals to lessen the tax advantage of workplace insurance or to encourage a private purchase system could further destabilize the employer-provided system. Now is a critical time to consider health insurance reform. Several promising solutions could increase access to affordable health care. The key is to create large, varied, and stable risk pools.

Universal Health Insurance Reform in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Medical Insurance ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Care For The Elderly ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
The Government ◽  
Universal Health

This article uses a refined version of historical institutionalism to critically examine the complex interplay of forces that shape the health insurance reform trajectory in China since the mid-1980s, problems that plague the current multi-layered social medical insurance system and solutions to these problems. It shows that achieving universal health coverage (UHC) requires the government to ensure financing equity between urban and rural insured participants, access to affordable health care and the financial sustainability of medical insurance funds. Facing the challenges of rapidly aging population, the government implements a pilot scheme that integrates medical and nursing care for the elderly and a pilot long-term care insurance scheme for disabled elderly. It is expected that these two pilot schemes can provide better financial protection and quality of medical services for the elderly.

scholarly journals Health insurance reform in China after the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Khentsze Lyu
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Communist Party Of China ◽  
Insurance System ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The Government

This article reviews the health insurance reforms in China for the period from 2002 to the present. It stated that 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China introduced significant amendments to health insurance system, balancing the negative impact of capitalist mechanisms, on the one hand, and justice and equality – on the other. This stage of development in China’s healthcare insurance system is described as the “second generation” in healthcare system, characterized with the change of government’s role in allocation of resources in healthcare sector: proliferation of “wild capitalism” in medicine is replaced with the concept of granting freedom to the market mechanisms under the government supervision. The reforms of PRC government in the area of health have a clear social focus. The state takes over responsibility for health of the citizens, which was released to a free market in the “new course” of the 1980s – 1990s. At the same time, the former paternalistic scheme is replaced by the equal system of interaction between society and the government. In all cases, the insurance funds are formed out of personal deposits of the citizens and deposits of local and central authorities. Municipalities are responsible for majority of decisions in the area of development of insurance schemes. The government’s role consists in establishment of minimum deposits and maximum coverage. This is how the central authorities, local administration and citizens are involved in insurance schemes on equal terms.

Protect the Sick: Health Insurance Reform in One Easy Lesson

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 652-659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Stone
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Sick People ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
Inducing Factors

In most other nations, insurance for medical care is called sickness insurance, and it covers sick people. In the United States, we have “health insurance,” and its major carriers — commercial insurers, large employers, and increasingly government programs — strive to avoid sick people and cover only the healthy. This perverse logic at the heart of the American health insurance system is the key to reform debates.Focusing on sick people versus healthy people might seem a strange way to view the coverage issue. Most discussions of insurance categorize people into other groupings: the insured versus the uninsured; Caucasian whites versus other racial and ethnic groups; men versus women; poor and low-income people versus everybody else; children, adults, and the elderly; or citizens versus immigrants and undocumented aliens. More recently, health researchers have begun talking about “vulnerable populations,” using most of the same demographic groupings and adding other illness-inducing factors such as social isolation, stress, and impoverished neighborhoods. But as I will show, insurance plans now use premiums, cost-sharing, and other design features in ways that indirectly divide each of these groups into the sick and the healthy, to the detriment of the sick. By shifting the costs of illness onto people who use medical care — that is, sick people — market-oriented reforms of the last few decades have eroded insurance in the name of strengthening it.

Pax medica op de helling ?

Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-283
Author(s):  
Yvo Nuyens
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Professional Autonomy ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Health Insurance Reform ◽  
Medical Fees ◽  
The Government ◽  
State Of Affairs

After the sharp confiicts between the government and the medical unions in 1964 on the occasion of the health insurance reform, which introduced the «agreement system» for medical fees and repayments, a form of bargaining economy has developed in Belgian health care, with sick funds and medical unions as the major parties. This «Pax Medica» seems to be threatened by a series of financially motivated government measures aimed at reducing the medical group's professional autonomy and dominance. This article discusses the historical context, the parties involved and the development of these confiicts, pointing out the striking analogy with those of 1964, particularly as far as the unions strategy is concerned. The present state of affairs suggests not a threatening of the «Pax Medica», but rather a stabilization of the established power relationship between government, sick funds and medical unions, which will respect and continue the rules of democratic compromise.

Private Insurance Reform in the 1990s: Can it Solve the Health Care Crisis?

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bodenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Private Insurance ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
The United States ◽  
Healthy Population ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Insurance Reform ◽  
Health Insurance Reform

A number of health insurance reform proposals have surfaced at the state governmental level in the United States. These include Medicaid expansion for the below-poverty or near-poverty uninsured, state subsidy to individuals and/or businesses for the purchase of health insurance, risk pools for the medically uninsurable, insurance industry–initiated reforms within the small group market, the promotion of “stripped down” insurance plans that reduce premium cost, and state mandating of employer-sponsored health insurance for the employed uninsured. All of these insurance reform proposals have serious limitations: (1) they fail to address the inequities of the underwriting principle by which older and sicker people pay more for health insurance than the young and healthy population; (2) they extend the illogical linkage of employment and health insurance; and (3) they do not slow the rate of health cost inflation nor do they contain a mechanism to finance broader health coverage through savings within the health sector. An alternative to insurance reform is the establishment of a social insurance program that brings the entire population into a single risk pool.

Health insurance coverage for vulnerable children: two HIV orphans with Burkitt lymphoma and their quest for health insurance coverage in Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. e230508
Author(s):  
Sandra Langat ◽  
Festus Njuguna ◽  
Gertjan Kaspers ◽  
Saskia Mostert
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Burkitt Lymphoma ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Uninsured Children

The United Nations and WHO have summoned governments from low-income and middle-income countries to institute universal health coverage and thereby improve their population’s healthcare access and outcomes. Until now, few countries responded favourably to this international plea. The HIV/AIDS epidemic, a major global public health challenge, resulted in over 11 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. Extended families have taken responsibility for more than 90% of these children. HIV orphans are likely to be poorer and less healthy. Burkitt lymphoma is the most common childhood cancer in sub-Saharan Africa. If orphans need lifesaving chemotherapy, appointing legal guardians becomes necessary to access health insurance. However, rules and regulations involved may be unclear and costly. This hinders its access for poor families who need it most. Uninsured children risk hospital detention over unpaid medical bills and have lower survival. Our case report depicts the quest for health insurance coverage of two HIV orphans with Burkitt lymphoma in Kenya.

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