Financing Health Care in the 21st Century

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, unlike virtually every other industrialized country in the world, the United States provides medical care to its citizens through the private workplace and finances it primarily through private insurance. It looks at how expenditures on such public programs as Medicare and Medicaid have increased the government's portion of the nation's health care burden since World War II. It explores how the majority of health care funding still comes from the private sector and how this has left millions of people uninsured because they are considered too "wealthy" or too young to qualify for public assistance, but are not employed at places where they receive health benefits.

Outline
Cost Containment by the Commercial Insurance Industry
Cost Containment by Health Care Providers
Looking into the Future of Health Care

From the Paper:

"Although the United States spends far more on health care in actual dollars and as a percentage of the GDP than any other country of the world, the U.S. ranks low among industrialized countries in overall life expectancy and infant mortality. Recently, President Bush proposed a tax credit of $2000 for the purchase of health insurance for the millions of uninsured Americans. But this would not address another serious problem of uninsured and underinsured Americans, namely that employees who have medical problems cannot get health insurance at all. Not only are they unable to obtain insurance, their condition often prevents them from obtaining employment from employers who offer medical insurance because they are bad risks."

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