Access to Healthcare in the United States

Access to healthcare is the appropriate utilization of health services at the right time to obtain the best outcome. Accessing adequate healthcare is essential in maintaining and promoting human well-being such as managing diseases as well as preventing disabilities and premature deaths among others. Globally, technology has increased significantly, but the accessibility of healthcare services carries some challenges that go beyond what technology can provide. Today in the U.S., access to healthcare continues to be a problem, particularly in the remote rural area and inner-city urban centers (Foutz, Artiga and Garfield, 2016). The challenge is cultivated by issues such as lack of transportation, unavailability of service providers and poor geographical locations among others. Some of the things that citizens require for accessibility include finances to pay for the service. Also, they need transportation availability to reach the service providers, and finally, confidentiality between the caregivers and the patient. Accessibility of these services is worse in patients without health insurance coverage, to which a significant number of people do not hold. According to different research, twelve percent of rural nonelderly residents are uninsured. Moreover, variation exists between the states that expanded Medicaid (9%) versus those that failed to extend (15%) (Rural Health Information Hub, 2017).  The Affordable Healthcare Act helped many patients acquire insurance coverage. In 2014, after the Act was adopted, 10.4% of the American population was uninsured as compared to 13.3% in 2013 (before passing the Act).

            Again, according to the Health Care Access and Use Among the Rural Uninsured, people without medical insurance encounter more challenges of accessing care services as compared to those covered (Rollins, 2017). Being uninsured makes them delay or fail to attend for medical assistance due to high treatment cost that they may not afford. One of the huge steps that an individual can take to enroll with healthcare insurers includes contacting specialists and outreach individuals who can navigate the insurance process. Such people connect patients with the company to help them pay for their immediate or future health needs.

            Some of the intervention strategies that either the government or individuals can utilize include Providing mobile clinics: These facilities can offer primary care, dental care or preventive care services to underserved areas while using a vehicle equipped with medical technology. This form of services can help many patients to save money and thus reduce the spending impacts that could have prevented them from acquiring the treatments (Gennaro, 2016). Moreover, such services can also mitigate blood pressures cases since clients shall not be strained to obtain costly medical facilities, far from home.

            Another approach is that hospitals can work with different transportation networks to end the poor attendance of individuals in the rural and inner-city areas. The transportation issue is more experienced by seniors who feel uncomfortable when driving. Drivers can go further to pick patients at their doorstep and take them to the hospital gate. The strategy is applicable considering that the Independent Transportation Network is now affiliated to over twenty-seven communities across the nation, ranging from Boston to Diego. This organization offer volunteering services to hundreds of visually impaired individuals and seniors.

            Motivation is one of the scenarios that make people develop interests of different subjects. For instance, a person can feel attracted to pursuing a particular course because his or her role model followed the same path. On the contrary, the interest in this topic developed in high school after my grandfather fell sick. By then, he was eighty-five years of age and suffering from diabetes. The grandfather used to live in the rural areas where accessing hospitals services took time looking for the available transportation methods. The waiting time for means of bringing him to the caregivers was too long that the problem deteriorated. However, a van came to pick him at home even though it was late. The distance from the rural home to the hospital where he could access the medical services was also far that we could take more than thirty minutes. Typically, for a sick person, it is better to provide medical services immediately after an attack, something that did not happen at this hour. By the time we were arriving at the hospital, my grandpa was twice as sick as compared to when the problem began. Nevertheless, he was treated even though after being admitted for three days which was unusual since, before, he visited the hospital and went back home on the same day. To me, the incidence developed to a desire of solving the challenge of limited access to healthcare, and that is why I first have to write research.

            On the same incidence, the issue against my grandpa needed immediate first aid, but on this day, he had hidden his kit, yet he could not talk. Requesting for an ambulance was one of the options I took since it could come with a nurse and some medicine to reduce the effect against this senior man. However, accessing even the ambulance was not easy, and thus the only option left was to get other means of transporting him, and that is why a public van came. This vehicle had no medicine or even first aid kits, thus making my desires and efforts futile. The pressure was immense that I had to blame the government for not providing facilities closer to the rural areas, but this is one of the scenarios I have encountered in my profession.

Annotated bibliography

Foutz, J. Artiga, S. Garfield, R. 2016. The Role of Medicaid in Rural America. Available at: http://files.kff.org/attachment/Issue-Brief-The-Role-of-Medicaid-in-Rural-America

            This document is brief and describes the role of Medicaid for fifty-two million nonelderly adults and children mostly living in the rural areas of the United States and continues to explain how reductions or expansions of Medicaid can affect individuals in these regions. The article carries topics such as; (1) how the rural population experience challenges to the health care access and insurance coverage. (2) The crucial role played by Medicaid in filling the gap in private insurance in the rural United States, and finally, (3) The Affordable Care Act. The article has crucial information that some programs such as Medicaid can play when strengthened. The document describes that expanding Medicaid within the remaining nineteen states would cause an increase in the rural areas insurance coverage across the states that have not adopted it yet have high unmet demand.

Gennaro, S. (2016). Why write? Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(2), 58,102.

            This journal is an official one for Sigma Theta Tau International reflecting the dedication of the society in providing the necessary tools to advance the global nursing care. The document features research articles from some leading nurse practitioners and peer-reviewed journals. The involved people and institutions such as health professionals, students, and faculties in ninety nations as well journals of nursing scholarship, all deals with people over the world. This journal presents a platform for the publication of well-thought research reports and research review, submitted on topics such as world health, profession, and society, clinical scholarships as well as health policy and systems. The advantage of this article is that it provides analysis of different sectors of health that can be utilized in remedying some of the primary challenges such as poor health policies.

Rural Health Information Hub, 2017. Healthcare Access in Rural Communities. Available at: https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/healthcare-access

            This document is a guide that gives an overview of healthcare access barriers in the rural areas of America and how the community, as well as policymakers, can help in lifting this challenge. The document has information on limits to healthcare such as shortages of the workforce, the state of health insurance, the transportation and distance, poor health literacy as well as stigma of specific predicaments such as substance abuse and mental health problems for those in the rural areas. Moreover, this guide has a section of frequently asked questions. The document is beneficial to the rural communities to help provide a stable and quality life free from adverse health issues. Also, it is essential for the government to push the policymakers to enact laws necessary in delivering better health services to the American.

Rollins, J.A. (2017). Healthcare: it’s So complicated. “Pediatric Nursing, 43(2), 58, 102.

            The document provides an overview of how the American administration led by the Congress wanted to change the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to another law beneficial to everyone. According to this document, the Congressional Budget Office released a report in 2017 that would affect the health insurance premiums and coverage. The article contains other information such as the responses of the healthcare community, the nursing organizations that called on the American administration towards bettering the healthcare services, and also the people speak where the public is reluctant to give away the ACA. The document is clear on administration’s plan, the public and medical practitioners view. As long as what the government provides is more beneficial than the current act, then it is recommendable, but the administration has to be cautious not to present a poor method of providing services to the citizens.  The article findings prefer the current ACA as it is unsure of what the government shall offer.