While the patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) promised to reform clinical preventive services and transform the response to traditional centerpieces in the U.S., like other health policies, it was overlooked. Three factors contributing to the U.S. health systems development today were (i) improving health insurance coverage (Pollack, 2011, 2065). While the reforms considered that social health determinants were likely to have low effects on a healthy population, health insurance coverage currently facilitates primary care provision. It gives accompanying treatment with inexpensive medications.
(ii) Demand for change in the healthcare system, by the grassroots movements in the 20th century, consisting of women’s movements and civil rights on behalf of particular health conditions within the healthcare system (Hoffman, 2008, 75). With the demands came the changes in medical care provisions for people with HIV and AIDS and the marginalized in the community. (iii) Unequal treatment of U.S. citizens based on racial, sex, and age differences (Hoffman, 2008, 78). The role attributed to prejudice, stereotyping, and bias in healthcare service delivery contributed to poor service delivery through disparities in healthcare utilization and access among minority groups.
Over the last five years, healthcare service delivery in the U.S. has significantly changed. With technological innovations at the forefront of healthcare service delivery, patients acquire more personalized medical attention, regardless of race. With Medicare and Medicaid providing health coverage, healthcare services are now affordable to all Americans at a lower cost (Mulligan and Castañeda, 2018, 56). Regardless of age, sex, and ethnicity, the government continues to fight disparities hindering equality in healthcare service provision. With an all-inclusive healthcare system, minority groups, LGBT included, are no longer treated with prejudice (Mulligan and Castañeda, 2018, 58). The American Medical Association continues to emphasize physicians act professionally and end healthcare disparities.
References
Hoffman, B. (2003). Health Care Reform and Social Movements in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 93 1, 75-85.
Mulligan, J. M., & Castañeda, H. (2018). Unequal coverage: The experience of health care reform in the United States. New York.: New York University Press.
Pollack, H. (2011). Health reform and public health: Will good policies but badpolitics combine to produce bad policy? University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 159, 6, 2061-2081.