Health access is a global fundamental human right that every human being should benefit from regardless of their race, ethnicity or nationality. The ability to access health has enabled the world to combat ailments such as malaria, Ebola, and plagues such as cholera in an efficient manner. It has also allowed patients of terminal and long term illnesses such as cancer to access quality health care within the various health systems of the countries that they come from. However, various governments have different ways of being actively involved in the growth of health care in their countries. In most countries, the government has focused on ensuring that healthcare is standardized, and that the citizens access health care in an easy and efficient manner with a guarantee of quality service. Governments are tasked in ensuring that services offered by hospitals, whether public or private, profit or non-profit hospitals, are standardized and they have the appropriate licensing and certification to operate. This helps in ensuring professionalism in the medical profession and it also ensures quality provision of services. In the essay below, the role of the United States government in shaping the growth and also its contribution to the decline of the hospitals within the country.
In the United States, the federal government plays a critical role in ensuring that hospitals are growing and at the same time serving the people within their states. One of the ways in which the government ensures that hospitals within states are able to grow is by certifying the licenses that have already been issued out the respective state governments. It is therefore up to the federal government to certify that the hospitals comply with the medical conditions that are globally acceptable. This is done through various accredited Joint Committees that are tasked in ensuring quality health assurance through the various health policies that are passed by ensuring that such policies are targeted at ensuring quality, the federal government plays a role in ensuring accountability. With hospitals at the state level being held accountable by the federal government, hospitals are able to expand in terms of the policies they have set in place that ensure Medicare based quality improvement that is guided by the federal out government. Therefore, this ensures that hospitals grow by carrying the required changes that may be proposed in the policy amendments.
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Another way in which the government has participated in the growth of hospitals is by funding some of the research projects carried out in some state owned hospitals. In some hospitals, the laboratories may not be well equipped for research and this may derail the solutions to some of the diseases that are witnessed with every new day. The government therefore comes in and funds some of these hospitals by setting up the adequate infrastructure needed to facilitate research and innovation. Provision of scientists, say from the Center for Disease Control is also one of the contributions of the federal government towards hospitals. With such innovations taking place at the state level, hospitals are able to grow in terms of infrastructure and capacity since they can handle more patients and also tackle complex diseases without having to send patients to referral hospitals for the same.
The government has also participated in the decline of hospitals in the country. The United States government, through some of its policies has caused a decline in the growth of hospitals. Policies of nationalizing the healthcare system through programs such as the Obama care have caused hospital growth to stagnate. This is due to the monopolization of most drugs and services by the government. Despite the government aiming at ensuring that every citizen is able to access healthcare, it has created a problem that causes the demand of hospital services to go high but the supply has become low and so has the quality. This is because nationalization threatens state and private hospitals which operate on the basis of making profit. Subsidizing healthcare has resulted to poor performance in hospitals since the government has resulted to taxing employee benefits which has affected the morale of many physicians. By doing this, the government has caused a decline in the growth of hospitals despite introducing such a policy with the aim of assisting the citizens.
On account of the above points, it would suffice to conclude that the government has made significant steps in ensuring the growth of hospitals, and the overall improvement of healthcare in America. This has been seen in the policies that have been set in place such as those expecting hospitals to be certified before offering any medical service. This has reduced the number of deaths witnessed in hospitals due to poor service delivery and it has also increased the citizenry confidence in the healthcare system. Also, the government has been seen to contribute in the decline in the growth of hospitals since it has introduced policies which despite being of help to the citizens, have caused a decline in the quality of health care provided. To curb this, the federal and state governments should engage more with economists so as to offer the best services to their citizens without compromising on the quality of health provided in our hospitals.
References
Mangan, D. (2018). Insurers, doctors and hospitals oppose repeal of Obamacare individual mandate. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/14/insurers-doctors-and-hospitals-oppose-repeal-of-obamacare-mandate.html
Tang N, e. (2018). The roles of government in improving health care quality and safety. - PubMed - NCBI. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14738036
What Is the Government’s Role in US Health Care?. (2018). Retrieved from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-is-the-governments-role-in-u-s-healthcare
