Question

A government-sponsored health care plans which provide some level of funding for certain patients in the United States. In view the elderly demographic increasing in the US presently, select one of these programs and elaborate on:

-The nature of the program

-The type and possibly, level of funding, which the program provides

-Two gaps in funding which relate to the program and how these can be addressed for patients

Answer 1

There are many US government sponsored health care plans for the citizens.However, Medicare is one of the premier health insurance programs which cover health care cost for individuals who meet criteria for social security such as elderly people with more than 65years of age, people with disability and patients with ESRD, hypertension, COPD, asthma, amylotrophic lateral sclerosis, diabetes, stroke and heart disease.Funding is operated federally through private sectors by means of surtax, payroll tax, premium paid by enrollees and revenue generated by US general treasury.Around 60 million individuals are benefitted which comprise of majority (52 million) of elderly and minority(8 million) of young people.A large portion of fund from this program is spent towards nursing homes home care facilities and hospices.This program provide a health coverage of half of the total health care cost of those enrolled.The major gaps or limitations of this program could be that more elderly people pay premium post retirement with less income in hand where as young people in work do not spent much towards health insurance. Moreover, hospitals lack in number of physicians in terms of health care needs of older population and less residents are being trained due to budget constraints faced by Medicare that contributes major funds for training of medical graduates.These issues could addressed in a way that employed young adults must be encouraged to enroll and pay for Medicare so that they could get more benefits when they grow old.Another gap is the lack of frequent quality check in Medicare which could be solved through internal audits in order to understand the cause of budget issues and more fund could be raised for training of residents to recruit more physicians to hospitals so that older population could benefit.