Health insurance help pay part or whole amount of medical expenses. Health insurance includes insurance for any loss incurred from an accident, disability, medical expense, dismemberment, and accidental death. The purpose of this composition is to discuss the benefits of health insurance. Health insurance protects us from financial losses that can incur from sicknesses and accidents. Person health is one of the prime assets one can have. Having an excellent medical insurance program helps safeguard the financial future and health of you and your family. With good ways to access affordable medical insurance, getting you and your family covered is worthy. A big number of Americans do not have health insurance coverage. High number of uncovered persons in America has been a challenge. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) created a research committee on the impact of lack of medical coverage, examining the consequences of lack of medical insurance coverage on families, individuals, communities, and the entire society (Institute of Medicine. 2004. Pg. 2). IOM concluded that having a bigger number of population without health insurance coverage have a significant negative impact on families, individuals, community, and the entire society.
Health insurance background
Health insurance information has been gathered by National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) since the year 1959. From 1959 to 1968, Medical insurance coverage information was gathered in three years; from 1968 to 1989, data was collected after every two years, and from 1989 health insurance data were taken every year (Duffy et al., 2013). The NHIS medical insurance questions have expanded and changed with time indicating changes in medical insurance coverage and plans. Up to 1997, medical insurance questions were based on a supplement to the primary questionnaires. However, in 1997, the collection of data concerning health insurance was attached to the fundamental family examination of the survey. From 1997, the information and flow of the central medical insurance section have been relatively constant, involving new plans where needed. For instance, NHIS included the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) on the questionnaire’s list of types of coverage. Research shows that lack of medical insurance cover significantly negatively affects health status and access to health care.
In 1959, three organizations provided private medical insurance in the United States: private insurance companies, Blue Cross-Blue Shield plans, and Comprehensive, independent, prepaid plans like Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Health-Insurance Plan of Greater New York. At around 44 million people in the US lacked medical insurance cover in the year 2008. NHIS research indicated that children below 18 years are likely to be uninsured compared to persons above 18 years from 1997 to 2007. The research suggested the percentage of persons below 65 years, with private cover, rose from 1959 to 1968, remained constant up to 1980, and reduced in 2007.
Figure 1 shows the percentage of the population aged 65 years and over, having private cover from 1950-2010.
The research result also indicated the following:
Figure 2 below shows the percentage of persons 18-64 years of age without medical insurance coverage during the interview, from 1997-2008 in the United States.
Current status of health insurance
Based on the data recorded in the Economic Supplement and Current Population Survey, indicated that in the year 2019, 26.1 million people lacked health insurance coverage. Private medical insurance coverage was preferred more than public health coverage (Greenwood-Ericksen & Kocher, 2019). The number of persons with employer-provided health insurance coverage was higher than in 2018 during the interview. All Districts and States of Columbia had a decreased uninsured rate in 2019 than the year 2010. Health insurance is not accessible; premium health insurance is very expensive to low earning in this world, contributing to the uninsured population worldwide.
How Individuals and families get medical insurance coverage
Majority of medical insurance coverage in the US is provided by government and employers (Institute of Medicine, 2002 pg. 17). Covered family members get coverage through family member insurance or their job, or government program like Medicare or Medicaid. Employers or government program may take control on who receive insurance, for how long, and under what condition.
Why should the public care and policy be concerned about insurance coverage?
Ways health insurance can be beneficial to us.
Health insurance benefits you and your family in many ways. Health insurance benefits include comprehensive access at a lower cost; However, the primary purpose of health insurance was to be protected from catastrophic situations, and beneficiaries gain access to low or free services like visits from routine doctors. Secondly, Wealth transfer, health insurance helps in sizeable wealth transfers. Wealthy people pay more through tax to fund organizations such as Medicaid and Medicare (Dickman, Himmelstein & Woolhandler, 2017). Lastly, Ensuring and enhancing the quality of hospitals and clinicians. Both public and private insurers have developed mechanisms efforts to improve and monitor the quality of health services centers and clinicians. For example, a hospital quality rating helps persons select hospitals for treatment, excluding some hospitals from giving some medical services depending on quality (Austin et al., 2015). Other significant health insurance includes good networking of hospitals and doctors and resources to help maintain your health. Having good health insurance, you will be happy and enjoy: peace of mind and get the help you require close to your residence. Health insurance is beneficial for everybody to be able to live a healthy life.
Conclusion
Health Insurance is fundamental to every person. Health insurance helps people access quality health care, wealth transfer, reduce the cost of treatment, and help control clinicians and hospitals. The rate of insured persons has been rising since 1950; however, health insurance coverage payment is growing, making it hard for non-wealthy people to take insurance coverage. Health insurance provides health cover to sustain a healthy population. Families with uninsured member or all members are more likely to spend more proportion of family earning than insured families.
