Healthcare Reform and the Future of Socialized Medicine in the United States Essays

Healthcare Reform and the Future of Socialized Medicine in the United States Essays Healthcare Reform and the Future of Socialized Medicine in the United States Paper Healthcare Reform and the Future of Socialized Medicine in the United States Paper Nearly everyone at the end of the twentieth century agreed: something was wrong with the health care system in the United States. While some thought it delivered the best medicine in the world, one can readily challenge this claim, just pointing at the exclusion of too many people in the system and the healthcare in the country was very costly. Many others thought it did not even provide good medicine, let alone good healthcare, to the people it did include. Some perceived the difficulties to be of recent origin; others saw problems of longer duration. Some turned to business models such as managed care as a panacea; others indicted managed care as one of the major problems. These issues remain strong today, with the issues of healthcare reform and socialized medicine particularly dominating the debates. In this light, this paper describes the American healthcare system and the problems it confronts, the need for a healthcare reform, and why socialized medicine, despite its advantages, remains unattractive to many parties, especially the conservatives. https://healtheappointments.com/social-problems-in-morocco-essays/ The data presented and discussed in this paper were collected through desk research. For this research, secondary data were gathered from journal articles relating to the debates of healthcare reform and socialized medicine in the United States. One of the major strengths of desk research is its practicality. It is a quick method of collecting information and is easier to conduct than field research. The overall purpose of this essay is to draw attention to the problems associated with the American healthcare system. The Healthcare System in America The American healthcare system grew out of a series of historical accidents. Today, most commercially insured Americans receive their health care coverage through their jobs or unions. This is a legacy of the metaphorical shipyard bosss attempt to cope with the economic struggles created by the Second World War. Those who retire from the shipyard, are fired, cannot get hired, or end up permanently disabled all count on a combination of federal and state government agencies for help. Tens of millions of Americans caught in the middle – in the no-mans land outside of good jobs, union membership, major disability, old age, or chronic poverty – have no coverage at all, fending for themselves in a system built to accommodate everyone else. Contrary to popular belief, those uninsured Americans do in fact receive medical care – but they get it only when their medical conditions have deteriorated to the point of crisis, at unnecessarily great expense to themselves, to taxpayers, and to their own already marginal personal solvency. For example, workers of many small companies are not provided healthcare benefits because their employers cannot afford healthcare insurance plans. Another issue related to the provision of healthcare by managed healthcare companies in the United States is accessibility, as those uninsured, minority groups, senior citizens, chronically ill, and low income Americans are often neglected regarding their healthcare. The reliance on employer-sponsored insurance has important implications for the efficiency and quality of healthcare in the United States. One of the many benefits of this kind of insurance is that the existence of a market for healthcare insurance, in which private insurers are vying for the business of private employers, results in innovation in insurance product development (Robinson, 2002, cited in Blumenthal, 2006). However, Blumenthal (2006) states that such innovations â€Å"have not proved to be sufficient to ameliorate our nation’s fundamental health care problems of cost, quality, and access to services† (p. 86). One of the major issues in the healthcare system in the United States is the employer abandonment of employee health benefits. At present, 60% of employees receive their health insurance through their employers (Bailey, 2006). However, since 2000 this rate has progressively slipped. It is feared that Young workers today will not receive employer-provided benefits that their parents or grandparents enjoyed. Employers usually justify their actions (or lack of actions) by stating that providing employee health benefits are very costly, which may eventually result in bankruptcy. According to Bailey (2006): â€Å"These companies, along with thousands of small employers, are simply reducing employee benefits, shifting more of the benefits costs to employees, or no longer providing benefits.† (p. 26) Indeed, participation in the employer-provided health care benefit plans is negligible. In 2005, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 47% of employees did not participate in such plans, and that among employees whose average wage was less than $15 per hour, only 39% participated in such plans.

Bushido, The Samurai Code

Bushido, The Samurai Code Bushido was the code of conduct for Japans warrior classes from perhaps as early as the 8th century through modern times. The word bushido comes from the Japanese roots bushi  meaning warrior, and do meaning path or way. Literally, then, it can be translated as the way of the warrior.   Bushido was followed by Japans samurai warriors and their precursors in feudal Japan, as well as much of central  and east Asia. The principles of bushido emphasized honor, courage, skill in the martial arts, and loyalty to a warriors master (daimyo) above all else. It is somewhat similar to the ideas of chivalry that knights followed in feudal Europe. There is just as much folklore that exemplifies bushido- such as the 47  Ronin  of Japanese legend- as there is European folklore about knights.   What is Bushido? A more elaborated list of the virtues encoded in bushido includes frugality, righteousness, courage, benevolence, respect, sincerity, honor, loyalty, and self-control. The specific strictures of bushido varied, however, over time and from place to place within Japan.   Bushido was an ethical system, rather than a religious belief system. In fact, many samurais believed that they were excluded from any reward in the afterlife or in their next lives, according to the rules of Buddhism, because they were trained to fight and kill in this life. Nevertheless, their honor and loyalty had to sustain them, in the face of the knowledge that they would likely end up in the Buddhist version of hell after they died. The ideal samurai warrior was supposed to be immune from the fear of death. Only the fear of dishonor and loyalty to his daimyo motivated the true samurai.  If a samurai felt that he had lost his honor (or was about to lose it) according to the rules of bushido, he could regain his standing by committing a rather painful form of ritual suicide, called seppuku. A public ritual suicide or seppuku.. ivan-96 / Getty Images While European feudal religious codes of conduct forbade suicide, in feudal Japan it was the ultimate act of bravery. A samurai who committed seppuku would not only regain his honor, he would actually gain prestige for his courage in facing death calmly. This became a cultural touchstone in Japan, so much so that women and children of the samurai class were also expected to face death calmly if they were caught up in a battle or siege. Samurai recruits training for the Satsuma Rebellion. Three Lions / Hulton Archive / Getty Images History of Bushido How did this rather extraordinary system arise?  As early as the 8th century, military men were writing books about the use and the perfection of the sword. They also created the ideal of the warrior-poet, who was brave, well-educated, and loyal. In the middle period between the 13th to 16th centuries, Japanese literature celebrated reckless courage, extreme devotion to ones family and to ones lord, and cultivation of the intellect for warriors. Most of the works that dealt with what would later be called bushido concerned the great civil war known as the Genpei War  from 1180 to 1185, which pitted the Minamoto and Taira clans against one another and led to the foundation of the Kamakura Period of shogunate rule. The final phase of the development of bushido was the Tokugawa era, from 1600 to 1868. This was a time of introspection and theoretical development for the samurai warrior class because the country had been basically peaceful for centuries. The samurai practiced martial arts and studied the great war literature of earlier periods, but they had little opportunity to put the theory into practice until the Boshin War  of 1868 to 1869 and the later  Meiji Restoration. As with earlier periods, Tokugawa samurai looked to a previous, bloodier era in Japanese history for inspiration- in this case, more than a century of constant warfare among the daimyo clans. Modern Bushido After the samurai ruling class was abolished in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, Japan created a modern conscript army. One might think that bushido would fade away along with the samurai who had invented it. In fact, Japanese nationalists and war leaders continued to appeal to this cultural ideal throughout the early 20th century and World War II. Echoes of seppuku were strong in the suicide charges that Japanese troops made on various Pacific Islands, as well as in the kamikaze pilots who drove their aircraft into Allied battleships and bombed Hawaii to start off Americas involvement in the war. Today, bushido continues to resonate in modern Japanese culture.  Its stress on courage, self-denial, and loyalty has proved particularly useful for corporations seeking to get the maximum amount of work out of their salarymen.