Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Healthcare rationing in the United States
Summary
Healthcare rationing in the United States exists in various forms. Access to private health insurance is rationed on price and ability to pay. Those unable to afford a health insurance policy are unable to acquire a private plan except by employer-provided and other job-attached coverage, and insurance companies sometimes pre-screen applicants for pre-existing medical conditions. Applicants with such conditions may be declined cover or pay higher premiums and/or have extra conditions imposed such as a waiting period.
The poor are given access to Medicaid, which is restricted by income and asset limits by means-testing, and other federal and state eligibility regulations apply. Health maintenance organizations (HMOs), which are common among the rest of the population, restrict access to treatment by financial and clinical access limits. Those 65 and older and a few others also qualify for Medicare, but it also has many restrictions.
In the media and in academia, some have advocated explicit healthcare rationing to limit the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. They argue that a proper rationing mechanism would be more equitable and cost-effective.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has argued that health care costs are the primary driver of government spending in the long term.
Peter Singer wrote for the New York Times Magazine in July 2009 that healthcare is rationed in the United States:
"Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.