Witness Testimony

Health and welfare stability is an important aspect for the society as this concern the humanitarian value of each individual. This aspect is viewed to be one of the basic necessity of the people thus, the government must fully satisfy this need through providing quality healthcare service for the people. As part of the government’s approach of providing reliable health institution for the society, the lawmaking body and the senate committee has drafted and implemented certain legal policies to advance the healthcare field and develop the service institution that will address this subject. One of the product of those policies is the establishment of the Medicare health system.

The Medicare healthcare system is implemented to address the need for health and welfare stability of the society encompassing the different age bracket primarily the elderly sector. The Medicare system main objectives are basically to provide sustainable financial assistance and quality healthcare services for the common people through soliciting minimal portion of their income and the contribution of the corporations or business entity they are involved with as an employee or worker. Part also of the assistance program is the offering of loan options for individual to finance his or her needs for healthcare services. In general, the effects and values of the Medicare program is in the assistance it offers to the healthcare finances of people reflected in the reduction of the medication bills, hospital expenses, and payment for medical services. Indeed, this approach of the Medicare program has proved to be an effective government aid for the healthcare needs of the society.

However, in the present, recent study and critical analysis led and reported by Ms. Mary Grealy have divulges controversial informations regarding the deteriorating value and effect of the Medicare program to address the health assistance need of the people. An example, of this is the unequal allocation of the payment resources for the healthcare expenses of most patients. Because the Medicare program requires the medical institution to reduce the payment for healthcare services, most professional in this field just extract more from the patient’s portion just to suffice for the reduction requirement. Thus, the assistance objective of the said program is not being implemented ideally and as planned in the present thus, resulting still to a high financial burden for the people for their healthcare needs.

Thus, to maintain the primary objective of the Medicare assistance program, Ms Grealy has proposed an amendment to strengthen and improve the said program. This strengthening approach requires creating new policies and reviewing the previous ones to augment the purpose and implementation of the Medicare health program. Some of the mentioned approach in Grealy’s report is the development of an educational program to enhance the awareness about the Medicare system and the needed reform for the improvement and redevelopment of the model used for the program’s implementation. This approach for strengthening the Medicare program is mainly towards the objective of making the system more competitive against other private health insurance, which are obviously more expensive. Indeed, the proposal of Ms. Grealy is mainly towards giving the society a better choice with lighter financial burden to assist their healthcare needs and medical services.

Healthcare assistance program is important for the society as this offers the people particularly those who direly in need of financial subsidy for them to avail medical and healthcare services. This program gives the society a reliable and stable assistance system for them to count for their lifetime healthcare financial necessities. Because of this significance, it is indeed important to strengthen and improvise this program for it to fully satisfy its main ideal objective. If implemented, this will greatly affect the welfare provision for the people through the unyielding and improved participation of the government with their policy legislation and implementation improvement for the benefit for the society.

Bibliography

• Frenzen, Paul D. (1996). The Medicare and Medicaid programs in rural America: A profile of program beneficiaries and health care providers. Economic Research Service, Rural Economy Division. ASIN: B0006QHRDQ.
• Ms. Grealy, Mary, President of Healthcare Leadership Council (2003). Strengthening and Improving Medicare.The House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Prepared Witness Testimony.
• Kingson, Eric R. & Berkowitz, Edward D. (1993). Social Security and Medicare: A Policy Primer. Auburn House. ISBN-10: 0865692009.