Essay - Managed Care the Situation of Health Care in the United...

Managed Care

The situation of health care in the United States has been accord*****g to many experts at a near disastrous level for many years. The concerns are many, one of which is th***** *****e for-profit system in ***** care has created a system where profit rather than care and quality drive the ***** and the care of patients. The more tests a physician orders the more cost ***** patient *****curs and the more m*****y the institution makes, leaving patients with insurance feeling as if they have been over-served ***** under cared for. Additionally, their insurance companies feel taken advantage ***** and over taxed, leaving them no choice but to raise premiums. With premiums high consumers ***** employers are left with fewer *****s and *****-prohibitive choices. This has resulted in millions of people, many of who are children without coverage of any k*****d ***** those people seek routine medical care in hospital ERs, during perceived emergencies, accruing bills ***** are unable ***** pay thus causing for profit hospitals to increase prices as well, and the system now reaching full circle ***** hurt everyone in the process.

Zelman & Berenson, 1998, p. xv) (Birenbaum, 1997, p. 14)

Ideally, medic*****e should be ruled by rationality ***** efficiency in the choice and implementation of evaluations and treatments. This means that the variability between providers not only should be but can be eliminated, and ***** only factors that ***** make a difference in deciding who to treat ***** what treatment to undertake is the nature of the patient's disease or injury. Behind this kind of thinking is a very powerful guideline: we *****s a country ***** a planet cannot treat everything, and we need to make distinctions *****tween ***** on the basis of effectiveness and cost. Managed c***** introdu*****es explicit rationing, based on looking at an array of variables that c***** influence outcomes. (Birenbaum, 1997, p. 14)

***** this climate a new system emerges, called managed care, again with the intention of pr*****it, ***** with a differing approach. ***** managed care system, attempts to profit by providing less care, through limiting ***** services patients can have and creating insular systems of care ***** above all keep *****s down. There ***** been many bugs to work out and ***** have again bore the brunt of the changes as for ***** years in its infancy the infrastructure was not quick enough to allow patients the ***** of ***** they needed in certain situations and trust in the greater community, as well ***** the government and the his*****rically well voiced medical community consist*****g of doctors who see payments decline and regulations increase and fear personal loss.

Zelman ***** Berenson, 1998, p. *****)

Managed care has come under increasing fire, as ***** controlled managed care has waned in political ***** consumer circles. The private health care *****dustries, answer to a failed bid ***** government provided care was private for profit ***** care *****, and their early failures ***** *****s have ***** consumer fear of the entire system. (Zelman