Question

Describe a brief history of health insurance from the early 1900’s to the present day. (Reminder: Please ensure that your response does not exceed two paragraphs.)

Answer 1

One hundred years ago, in 1908, health care was virtually unregulated and private insurance was non-existent. Physicians practiced and treated patients at home. The few existing hospitals offered inadequate medical treatment. Physicians and hospitals were unregulated. When patients saw a physician, they paid their modest out-of-pocket fees; they were more concerned about the wages they would lose if illness kept them out of work than about the cost of their medical care. Both payers, both private and public, have slowly stepped away from some of their more stringent managed care policies (such as captaining and provider preference limits) but have not replaced them with anything more effective in cost control. Not unexpectedly, health care rate inflation picked up again at the end of the 1990s.

The current strategy to address spending issues within the U.S. health care system is to introduce changes that will make it more like a traditional 'perfect market.' This is based on the assumption that health care should be treated as a private consumer product rather than a public good. These changes are part of the "consumer-driven health care" movement. All consumers, including those under employer-based health plans, will have a greater responsibility to make decisions on many aspects of their health care: how much of their own money to spend on it, what kind of insurance to buy, which providers to use, and what specific clinical procedures to use.For the time being, the U.S. tends to spend 50% more on health care, calculated by its share of GDP ( gross domestic product) than any other developing nation. At the same time, life expectancy is lower and child mortality rates are higher in the U.S. than in most other developed countries. The effectiveness of the various approaches to the restructuring of universal health care remains to be determined.