ADMINISTRATION OF HEALTHCARE DELIVERY SYSTEM

Debt Default Casing Medicare and Medicaid Uncertainty

Feder (2011) analyzed the looming uncertainty of the Medicare and Medicaid services of the United States government in his article “For Medicare and Medicare, debt default means uncertainty.” Americans are continuously becoming nervous and worried about the future of their health care. This is because anticipate the turning point in the health care insurance industry in August when the government gives a verdict on the future of future of Medicare and Medicaid as a result of the current enormous deficit caused by debt defaulting. The issue here is whether Medicare will carry on paying the healthcare bills of its beneficiaries, whether Medicare premiums will be withheld if checks from Social Security continue to go out and whether all the states will continue to receive their shares of the Medicare funds (Feder, 2011).

The threat to stop most of the coverage provided for by Medicare and Medicaid came to the scene in March. This was when the government, through the relevant agencies in all states, ordered that preparations and plans be laid down to enforce the stoppage of funding of healthcare for American nationals by Medicare (Feder, 2011). Given that this funding crisis could happen in August, the questions to be asked are not about what kind of expenditure on healthcare is permissible, but rather what healthcare expenditure is possible with the current fiscal crisis. The dilemma in this situation, is that implementation of the policy blocking government expenditure on healthcare will mean that the administration will not have authority to spend money on healthcare even if it had the funds. On the other hand, striking the alternative deal that will allow the government to continue spending money on healthcare will mean that the administration will be obliged to spend money it could not be having. All Americans can do for now is hope for the best, which is the continuation of Medicare funding, or prepare for the worst, which is to dig deeper into their wallets to cover their increased healthcare expenses.

Conclusion

The two articles reviewed in this paper show the looming difficulty in the coverage of healthcare bills for Americans. This will especially affect the low-income earners whose healthcare insurance not well catered for even by the current Medicare policies. It is the worry of most Americans that the costs of healthcare are increasing as the funding by the government and coverage by employers continue to be minimized. Pecquet (2011) concentrates on the impact that the prevention of employers from dropping healthcare insurance coverage for their staff members while Feder (2011) focuses on the uncertainty of Medicare and Medicaid caused by debt defaulting. In consideration of the issues raised here, it is pertinent that healthcare policy-makers consider the impacts of these policies on the average- and low-income-earners, and the consequential repercussions that the policies will have on the productivity of Americans. Policies need to be made while keeping in mind the health and economic productivity of those it will affect.

References

Feder, J. L. (2011). “For Medicare and Medicaid, debt default means uncertainty.” Politico. Retrieved on July 24, 2011 from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59607.html

Pecquet, J. (2011). “Healthcare law could leave families with high insurance costs.” Healthwatch. The Hill Healthcare Blog. Retrieved on July 24, 2011 from http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/172765-healthcare-law-may-leave-families-with-high-insurance-costs

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). (2011). Health policy: Daily news digest. RWJF. Retrieved on July 24, 2011 from http://rwjf.org/healthpolicy/digestlist.jsp