Helping the uninsured
People who do not have health insurance normally have their insurance coverage provided by the government through programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. However, most of these individuals fail to qualify for the insurance coverage. The others who qualify encounter great challenge in finding a physician who can accept this insurance due to the lower rates the government has been using to reimburse doctors. The government should use the market forces to provide coverage for individuals with no insurance by providing an effective insurance exchange where the individuals are connected with providers of insurance and financial contributors such as family members and family members (Longhurst, 2011). Left on alone, market forces can be exploited by other health insurance to earn more profit by hiking premiums. In such arrangements, consumers can be allowed to pool resources through the help of financial contributors and hence, source the insurance covers from market providers.
To fund enhance the financing efforts for the uninsured , there should be collaboration between the federal government and various states so that financial burden can be reduced for the states and most of it is borne by the federal government (Kovner, Knickman, & Jonas,2011). The federal government should therefore, focus on how to raise the larger portion of the insurance costs by enacting laws through the senate; such laws should involve increased taxation for the high income earners and direct the funds towards insurance coverage for the uninsured. Through this, the low income earners can be allowed to pay insurance premiums that have been subsidized.
The control over private health insurance providers by the government should involve protecting the freedom of consumers to buy insurance plans as have been agreed between the parties. This also extends to protecting consumers from any fraud or force in the market and through this, the health insurance market will be left free of any interference. The reason for this control should be to ensure that various schemes of private health insurance do not work to exploitation of consumers through overcharged premiums that makes that deny them financial freedom (Motaze, Chi, Ongolo-Zogo, Ndongo, & Wiysonge, 2015). Without regulatory frameworks or interventions Private Health Insurance market players may come up with practices that aim at minimizing risks to prevent losses such as denying coverage for individual applicants with pre-existing health problems or even overcharging them for the same products. However, too much regulation should not be encouraged since the insurers may find themselves under much stress that lead to strangulation of the free market. Too much regulation may lead to a situation where the functioning of insurance schemes may not be sustainable and hence, can be forced to close their operations (Motaze, Chi, Ongolo-Zogo, Ndongo, & Wiysonge, 2015).
The government has the major task of shaping the health insurance sector .It largely takes the role of a regulatory body in the health insurance market and providing and enabling environment for private health insurance providers to operate and consumers to access such services. The aim government should ensure that the markets are competitive enough to allow consumers to freely select among different options, where there are different prices and coverage levels. The private health insurers should ensure that it provides health care coverage which the government is unable to meet due to financial constraints. Consumers should take control of their own health and raise complaints with other health stakeholders where they feel that their access to health insurance coverage is not being addressed (Kovner, Knickman, & Jonas,2011).
References
Longhurst, B. H. (2011). Health Care Exchanges: How the Government Can Use Market Forces to Fix the Health Care System. Nev. LJ, 12, 868.
Motaze, N. V., Chi, C. P., Ongolo-Zogo, P., Ndongo, J. S., & Wiysonge, C. S. (2015). Government regulation of private health insurance. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (4), CD011512. Advance online publication. http://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD011512
Kovner, A. R., Knickman, J., & Jonas, S. (2011). Jonas & Kovner's health care delivery in the United States. New York: Springer Pub.
