Discuss one economic factor, one legal factor and one political factor related to Medicare as a source of funding for healthcare.
Criminology and the Christian Worldview The Medicare growth and ability to help over 47 million citizens shows the progress made but the progress faced significant problems. The progress, challenges, and benefits help demonstrate the economic, political and health factors related to Medicare as a source of funding for the healthcare. One economic factor is evident by the increased funding by the federal government as the number of dependents increases. According to the video, it is clear that the federal government spends 15% of the entire healthcare budget on Medicare. The increment compliments the increase in costs within the healthcare sector and increment of beneficiaries. The federal government ability to finance Medicare also demonstrate that most of these people have fewer earnings thus subjecting the working population to increased taxations. The enactment of Medicare led to the increment of elderly with hospital insurance from 56% to 97% (Kaiser Family Foundation. 2013).
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The signing of Medicare law intended to enable accessible quality healthcare for all, but this did not eliminate the political nature of the exercise. In the 1970s and 1980s, most Republicans supported the enactment of different policies to improve the health benefits for Medicare, but since the 1990s, the political landscape changed leading to Democrats supporting Medicare and Republicans opposing most of the laws (Oberlander, 2015). The deficits in healthcare in recent times are similar to the initial period when states opposed the idea of national health insurance. Therefore, the deficits raise debates on the best policies to enhance healthcare provision and reduce costs.
Medicare is a law to enhance the access of healthcare, but in the 1960s, it catered for all elderlies without any regards of their financial status. However, laws to limit the access of Medicare for high-income population among other former beneficiaries are evidence of the changes. Due to the decrease in Medicare reserves, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reforms formulated a unified cost sharing for Medicare Part A and B by using co-insurance and deductibles thus making Medicaid take responsibility of dual-eligibles with the Medicare expanding successful cost containment by enhancing the Affordable Care Act (Larrat, E. P., Marcoux, & Vogenberg, 2012).
What research gaps or weakness in evidence-based practice for the elderly are suggested by what you have read/seen/heard about the Medicare program?
A wide gap exists in the evidence-based studies on elderly access to Medicare due to the generalized of the projections (Kaiser Family Foundation. 2013). These studies failed to address or focus on the racial, gender and diseases aspects that dominate the elderly dependence on Medicare. Therefore, future scholars should focus on eliminating these research gaps.
References
Kaiser Family Foundation. (2013, February 11). MEDICARE 101: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW [Video]. Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation . Retrieved June 6, 2018, from https://www.kff.org/medicare/event/medicare-101-what-you-need-to-know/
Larrat, E. P., Marcoux, R. M., & Vogenberg, F. R. (2012). Impact of Federal and State Legal Trends On Health Care Services. Pharmacy and Therapeutics , 37 (4), 218–226.
Oberlander, J. (2015, September 6). The Political History of Medicare. American Society on Aging . Retrieved June 6, 2018, from http://asaging.org/blog/political-history-medicare
