HealthCare.gov: Large Business Executives and the Affordable Care Act
http://www.healthcare.gov/foryou/large/index.html
Over 95% of employers with more than 50 employees offer health insurance. But since 2000, employer premiums have doubled. When employers pay more for insurance, they have less money to invest in the company and may be forced to pay lower wages or shift health care costs to their employees. The economic impact of America’s uninsured is also significant, costing our nation between $76 billion and $152 billion per year in lost productivity. The health insurance reform bill called the Affordable Care Act helps control costs in various ways even as it protects current plans.
HealthCare.gov: Take health care into your own hands.
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Duration : 0:1:41
Universal Health Care in the UK Explained – Educational Video. Charley has the workings of the National Health Service explained to him. NHS. National Health Service Act. National Health Service Scheme. This item is part of the collection: British Government Public Information Films. Director: Halas & Batchelor. Production Company: Halas & Batchelor. Keywords: National Health Service; NHS. Introduction to the British National Health Service. This is an excellent visual aid for anyone teaching modules on the early NHS in Britain. It’s an entertaining cartoon that provides a thorough introduction to the orignal aims of the NHS. Universal health care is health care coverage which is extended to all citizens, and sometimes permanent residents, of a governmental region. Universal health care programs vary widely in their structure and funding mechanisms, particularly the degree to which they are publicly funded. Typically, most health care costs are met by the population via compulsory health insurance or taxation, or a combination of both. Universal health care systems require government involvement, typically in the forms of enacting legislation, mandates and regulation. In some cases, government involvement also includes directly managing the health care system, but many countries use mixed public-private systems to deliver universal health care. In the 1880s, most citizens in Germany became covered under the mandatory health care system championed by Otto von Bismarck. The National Health Service (NHS), established in the United Kingdom in 1948, was the world’s first universal health care system provided by government. Universal health care is provided in most developed countries and in many developing countries. According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care. Universal health care is a broad concept that has been implemented in several ways. The common denominator for all such programs is some form of government action aimed at extending access to health care as widely as possible. Most countries implement universal health care through legislation, regulation and taxation. Legislation and regulation direct what care must be provided, to whom, and on what basis. Usually some costs are borne by the patient but are subsidized by taxation and compensated to the patient by the government. Many programs utilize some form of compulsory insurance to accomplish this goal. Other programs are paid for entirely out of tax revenues and provide automatic coverage for every citizen or resident. Virtually all of Europe has publicly sponsored and regulated health care. Countries include Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Universal health care in most countries has been achieved by a mixed model of funding. General taxation revenue is the primary source of funding, but in many countries it is supplemented by specific levies (which may be charged to the individual and/or an employer) or with the option of private payments (either direct or via optional insurance) for services beyond that covered by the public system. Most all European systems are financed through a mix of public and private contributions. The majority of universal health care systems are funded primarily by tax revenue (e.g. Portugal). Some nations, such as Germany, France and Japan employ a multi-payer system in which health care is funded by private and public contributions. A distinction is also made between municipal and national healthcare funding. For example, one model is that the bulk of the healthcare is funded by the municipality, speciality healthcare is provided and possibly funded by a larger entity, such as a municipal co-operation board or the state, and the medications are paid by a state agency. Universal health care systems are modestly redistributive. Progressivity of health care financing has limited implications for overall income inequality.
Universal Health Care Centers — Are Physicians Doing Their Part? / Video. Film on why health care workers and health care centers are needed to care for the uninsured, homeless and poor. From the public domain film, “A Right to Health”. Creative Commons license: Public Domain. Universal health care is health care coverage that is extended to all eligible residents of a governmental region and often covers medical, dental, and mental health care. These programs vary in their structure and funding mechanisms. Typically, most costs are met via a single-payer health care system or national health insurance. Universal health care is provided in all wealthy, industrialized countries, except for the United States. It is also provided in many developing countries and is the trend worldwide. Universal health care is a broad concept that has been implemented in several ways. The common denominator for all such programs is some form of government action aimed at extending access to health care as widely as possible. Most countries implement universal health care through legislation, regulation and taxation. Legislation and regulation direct what care must be provided, to whom, and on what basis. Usually some costs are borne by the patient at the time of consumption but the bulk of costs come from a combination of compulsory insurance and tax revenues. Some programs are paid for entirely out of tax revenues. In some cases, government involvement also includes directly managing the health care system, but many countries use mixed public-private systems to deliver universal health care. The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system. The government directly covers 27.8% of the population through health care programs for the elderly, disabled, military service families and veterans, children, and some of the poor, through Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and TRICARE. Indirectly, various governmental entities in the United States also contribute towards the healthcare coverage of many millions of federal, state, and local government employees and their families who are covered by traditional employer-based group insurance coverage with insurance premiums often substantially subsidized by the government employer using public tax revenues. Federal law ensures public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. However, this unfunded mandate has contributed to a health care safety net that some analyses say is increasingly strained. Certain types of medical spending and particularly health insurance benefit from significant tax subsidies; in particular, employer-sponsored health insurance is a non-taxable benefit. In all, government spending accounted for 45.1% of total health spending in the U.S. in 2005. Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 15% of GDP, the highest in the world. A study of international health care spending levels in the year 2000, published in the health policy journal Health Affairs, found that while the U.S. spends more on health care than other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the use of health care services in the U.S. is below the OECD median by most measures. The authors of the study concluded that the prices paid for health care services are much higher in the U.S.. An estimated 84.7% of citizens have some form of health insurance coverage, either through their employer, purchased individually, or through government sources. The number of uninsured, at 45.7 million in 2007, decreased slightly from 2006, because government programs covered nearly 3 million more people. It is projected that the current economic downturn and rising unemployment rate likely will cause the number of uninsured to grow by at least 2 million in 2008. One study estimates that about 25% of the country’s uninsured, or roughly another 11 million people, are eligible for government health care programs, but they are not enrolled. However, assuring adequate financing to cover those who are eligible remains a challenge.