Health Care Reform Recommendations Essay

The topic of heath care reform is a highly debatable one. Many different organizations have diverse ideas on what is essential to ensure a successful healthcare system is developed in the United Sates. After reading recommendations to advance health care reform from the Mayo Clinic’s (2008), The Wall Street Journal’s Health Care CEO Council (2008), consisting of CEO’s from multiple different medical organizations, and America’s Health Insurance Plan (AHIP)(2007), the following is a list of three recommendations considered by all to be valid ideas for healthcare reform: 1. Access: Universal Health Insurance A. A comprehensive health care reform recommendation of providing universal access to affordable, guaranteed, quality insurance plans for those not covered by employer-based programs. This plan would require individuals to buy insurance, giving them choice, accessibility, control, and peace of mind. B. This reform would require adults to purchase private health insurance for themselves and their families. Employers could continue to participate by buying insurance for their employees or giving them stipends to purchase it. However, the individual would own the insurance. C. Appointing and independent agency to provide coordination, oversight and education for individuals choosing insurance options. 2. Quality: Reform the Payment System A. Change the reimbursement system to reward preventive care and evidence-based care, and extend government efforts to no longer reimburse inappropriate, unsafe or wasted care. Define and measure desirable outcomes for most common diseases. B. Payment to providers should be changed in order to improve health and minimize waste. Create payment systems that provide incentives for various providers to coordinate care, improve care, and support informed patient decision-making. Models of payment should be developed based on the success of chronic care coordination, care coordination teams, shared decision-making and episode-based payment. C. Change Medicare to a pay-for-value model. Redistribute Medicare payments to favor physicians who perform well, as opposed to the current system that rewards volume not value. Paying providers based on value can help produce desired results such as: great outcomes, safety, and service at an affordable cost over time. 3. Affordability: A. Poorly coordinated care also drives up costs when individuals seeing several health care practitioners receive the same diagnostic tests and procedures multiple times because one physician did not know that the other already had conducted them. Access to information that compares the effectiveness and cost of treatments: give providers, patients and purchasers access to a trusted source where they can find up-to-date and objective information on which health care services are most effective and provide the best value. B. Provide positive personal health habit incentives. Lifestyles characterized by smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise leading to obesity are key contributors to high health care costs in the United States. Childhood obesity significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood (CDC, 2006) and according to a study done by the Office of the US Surgeon General (2007), the complications from obesity: cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer are estimated to cost $92 billion (Finkelstein, 2003) in lost productivity per year whereas estimates suggest that the health consequences of smoking may lead to more than $75 billion per year in medical expenditures. C. Provide tax credits to individuals, families for the purchase of insurance, and to small business owners that provide medical coverage to employees. On January 24, 2007, while speaking about healthcare at Families USA, a healthcare advocacy group, then Senator Obama said â€Å" The time has come for universal health care in America [†¦ ] I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country. † (Wikipedia, n. d). Senator McCain however, proposed tax credits and open-market competition as opposed to government funding control (Wikipedia, n. d. ) In comparison, President Obama and Senator McCain, had similar plans in regards to cost and quality improvement. Both parties suggested the adoption of medical malpractice reforms, allowing drug re-importation, focusing on healthcare costs as a reflection of quality service, prevention and care of chronic conditions, and development/deployment of HIT. In addition to similarities in cost and quality improvement, both also believed that prevention is the key to creating a healthier population. Senator McCain focused more on individual responsibility in maintaining and healthy lifestyle whereas President Obama supported increased funding to community based preventive interventions. Overall, a comparison of both parties preliminarily health reform plans reflect multiple similarities in general ideas of needed reforms to the United Sate’s current healthcare system. Whether by adopting a universal healthcare system or implementing changes to the current system; extending coverage, lowering costs, and improving quality of care are all issues agreed upon by both parties as needing attention. References America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)(2007). Guaranteeing Access to Coverage for all Americans. Retrieved 26 January 2009, from http://www. ahipbelieves. com/media/AHIP%20Guarantee%20Access%20Plan. pdf Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2006). National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved 26 January 2009, from http://www. cdc. gov/nchs/data/hesate/preliminarydesths05_tables. pdf. Finkelstein E. , et al. (2003). National medical spending attributable to obesity: How much and who’s paying? Health Affairs. W3: 219-226. The Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center (2008). Building Upon the Cornerstones: Recommendations, action steps and strategies to advance health care reform. Retrieved 26 January 2009, from http://www. mayoclinic. org/healthpolicycenter/recommendations. html The Wall Street Journal (2008) CEO Council: Shaping The New Agenda, Health Care. Retrieved 24 January 2009, from http://blogs. wsj. com/ceo-council/2008/11/23/health-care/ U. S. Surgeon General (2007). Overweight and Obesity: Health Consequences. Retrieved 26 January 2009, from http://www. surgeongeneral. gov/topics/obesity/calltoaction/fact_consequences. htm. Wikipedia (n. d. ). HealthCare Reform in the United States. Retrieved 26 January 2009, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Health_care_reform_in_the_United_States#cite_note-152

Philippine Prehistory: Lessons from the Historical Past Essay

Throughout the weeks of this course, I’ve learned a lot more about the Philippines as a place, as well as the people themselves and about the things they do. Before, I just went with the stereotypes that everyone says about Filipino’s, they’re all short, they’re poor, etc. In some cases, that remains true, but not for all of them out there. They also seem to be more advanced in technology than I thought they were. There is a lot more to the people, the country, the culture and their rich history. Some things I didn’t know about the Philippines were that they had established their own writing system before they had any contact or knowledge about other people or languages in the world. Baybayin or Alibata consisted of 14 consonants and 3 vowels, while using dots on the tops and bottoms of characters to distinguish consonants with certain vowels and a cross beneath character which takes out the vowel, leaving just the consonant. They also had technology of tools, using them to engrave the Baybayin writing into bamboo poles and creating the Angono Petroglyphs and the Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI). The LCI was found and nobody knew what it was, nor did anyone want it. But it held important information about how society was back then. The inscription was about the forgiveness of a debt. It was linked to several cities that still exist now. The Angono Petroglyphs exist in a cave in the province of Rizal. They contain images on rock walls of animals and humans that date back to 3000 B. C. Now days, due to erosion of the walls and defacing of the walls, some images have become indistinguishable. Another thing about the Philippines that I didn’t know about was the Tabon man. The Tabon man is reported the oldest known set of bones found in the Tabon Caves said to date back 30,000 years making it the oldest remains found in the Philippines. Some also believe it to be a woman. Some geologic things I didn’t know about were that the Philippines have three sections; Palawan, Mindanao, and Visayas. Within these areas, there are over 100 different languages spoken, although the national language is Filipino. In Mindanao, it is the place where the Islam religion is most prominent. It was introduced 100 years before Christianity. The Philippines consist of 7,100 Islands, but some of them only being above sea level in low tide, and under sea levels in high tide. There are only around 500 islands that are larger than 1 square mile and only 800 of the 7,100 are inhabited. The Philippines, as a whole, is about 194 times larger than Hawaii. There are two pronounced seasons, wet and dry, where June – November is wet and December – March is dry. Manila is the Capital of the Philippines and the Philippines has the 2nd largest mall in the world, the Mall of Asia. The Philippines is different than how I had looked at it before, and now I know more about their culture and how they live. This history is important because it shows where these people have been and where they are going. Although there might be some bad things throughout history here and there, it’s what brought the country to where it is now. This Country has more to offer than what I previously had thought and in my eyes, it seems like a pretty nice place to visit or live in.

KK1 essays

KK1 essays The film A Fish Called Wanda is on the AFIs (American Film Institute) Greatest 100 Comedies list. Although this film features talented actors like John Cleese and Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline easily steals the show. Kline gives a brilliant performance as the pseudo-intellectual Otto. What makes Kline so remarkable is the way that he moves and makes his character dance across the screen. Right from the outset, in one of the films first scene, we see that Klines Otto is no normal jewel thief. Even though Otto is supposed to be working under the guise that he is Wandas (Jamie Lee Curtis) sister, he quickly gives her breast a squeeze in full view of Ken, one of the other robbers. What makes this movement work comically is that Kline does it so lightening fast and that if you blinked you might miss it. He has such control over his arm that he is able to extend it, and withdraw it in a matter of maybe a second. This allows for the suspended disbelief that Ken does not see him do it. Another movement that Kline makes also speaks volumes about his body control. Otto and Wanda are together in what I take to be Ottos quarters. They are speaking excitedly about something and he leaps into the air, grabs a pipe that is suspended from the ceiling, lifts himself completely off the ground and sails on to the bed with the grace of a ballerina. This is so interesting because Klines Otto is supposed to a be a vulgar American bank robber. His graceful movement is evidenced again when Otto and Wanda go to the garage to claim the jewels the stole from a safe. Otto is angered by the fact that the jewels are not there. He goes over to kick a car out of anger. Rather then just kicking the tire, or burying his foot into the car door, Kline leaps into up and kicks the car twice while he is in the air. He takes what is just a simple movement and makes into something much more. While Kevin Kline is not a big man i...

Odysseus Best of the Achaens essays

Odysseus Best of the Achaens essays Odysseus receives the title of being the 'best of the Achaeans" regardless of his apparent lack of battle skills and physical strength. Odysseus was more of a counselor and a schemer than he was a fighter, so eventually the concept of a hero was transformed. Although the Greek's original understanding of a hero mostly consisted of extensive physical strength and stamina, it eventually comes to possess the qualities that Odysseus possesses. In several occasions, Odysseus uses this raw kind of trickery and intelligence to get him through one obstacle to another. In fact, we see how cunning he is even before he began his journey home, when we are introduced to his invention of the Trojan Horse, which influenced the war's victory immensely. He also applies his renowned cleverness throughout his journey home, including overcoming Polyphemus, escaping the sirens, and eventually overcoming the suitors that nearly took over his kingdom. Although Odysseus proves himself in many occasions, it is clear that all of his accomplishments were not achieved solely on his own. It could be argued that one requirement of being a hero, is having a divine god on the side of that individual. It is made most obvious that Odysseus is one of Athena's favorites of the mortals, and in turn she practically hands Odysseus his glory. Without Athena on Odysseus's side, he most certainly would not have prevailed as the hero that he is recognized as. In addition to this, Athena is not the only god that helps, as there are several of who assists Odysseus. Aeolus', the god of the winds, assists Odysseus in getting close to the shores of Ithica, and the god Hermes orders Calypso to release him so he can continue on his way. Ultimately, the changing understanding of a Greek hero is revealed quite clearly in The Odyssey, and Odysseus sets the standard of this new type of hero that has emerged. He proved himself a hero because he overcame all of his c...

Computerized Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Computerized Accounting - Essay Example The purpose of special journals is to record transactions received in form of electronic forms such as payroll, sales, expenses, cash received, and cash payments. The special journals are comprised of separate accounts, which are aimed at recording relevant information and posts pertaining to that account only. The system calculates the sum of each account in special journals and posts it in the general ledger tab of the software for a given period of time. Subsequently, the system takes data from these general ledger entries and creates the financial statements such as balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. Similarly, the payroll journals are comprised of all the relevant information and data pertaining to the salaries, wages and compensation paid to employees. It may also contain the information related to taxes, which are required to be paid to government. These transactions are entered periodically in the system. The sales journal of a special journal is designed to record all the sales transactions. There can be more than one or numerous journals in special journal for sales transactions as it is dependent on the number of goods and services sold by the business. The accounts receivables are entered in the journal named as cash receipt in the special journal, which represents the money not received from the customers. The cash disbursement journal is used to record the cash utilized by the company for purchase of inputs (wisegeek, n.d.). The merchandizing operations are comprised of buying and selling of goods to consumers. Furthermore, it also requires to make certain expenses to obtain inputs and resources for making these goods and spend on the marketing and distribution of these services and goods.   On the other hand service operations are more related to over see the daily routine activities of a business that is aimed at delivering quality products and services to consumer therefore, it involves having a broader perspective then merchandizing operations, where as, the merchandizing operation deals with selling the final product to the customers, buying necessary inventories in this regard, and collecting cash from customers.

Foreign Direct Investment in Developing Countries Essay

Foreign Direct Investment in Developing Countries - Essay Example The current global climate relies heavily on the existence of Foreign Direct Investment as a determining factor in the economic growth of any region. However, questions remain as to why there are certain pockets of countries where FDI seems to be flourishing, while others are vying for attention in this regard. There are many statistics that point to this (Vaknin, 2007, np). For example, only one third of the developing and poor nations get any forms of FDIs, and these are perhaps the neediest ones. Also, the contribution of the FDIs in the global economy is not even five percent. Then why is it considered as the next wave of development and a ray of light for poor nations' development FDIs have been strongly criticized for seizing the local talent of a country, preventing local growth, and thereby further reducing the economic development. Alongside, the other political, social and legal ramifications are amongst others in the list of problems associated with FDI (Vaknin, 2007, np). These and other such arguments have been raised in the past at the time when FDIs were being introduced for the first time across the world, and many critics still believe that such actions are leading to overall negative impacts in the long run on the poor countries. Foreign Direct Investment is defined as "investment in domestic structures, equipment and organization by foreign private sector or government. FDI does not include foreign portfolio investment in a domestic economy. The latter refers to investment in equity of domestic companies by foreign economic agents" (Kumo, 2009, np).On the other hand, there are many examples showing FDI as a potential source of success in the economy of a developing country. India for example, has become one of the world's favorite in gaining FDIs (Bhaumik et al, 2003, pp 2 and 3). The IT sector is one of the most prominent examples, which have jumpstarted India's GDP to one of the largest in the developing world. These and many such shining examples are now showing that FDIs can play a very important contributory role in improving the economic prosperity of poor nations. The initial skepticism is now giving way to acceptance and even appreciation of FDIs as research results show improved economic outcomes w ith the introduction of multinational companies and foreign investments over loans.Education is another recently discovered successful area where FDIs are taking place in India. Although critics pose questions about the cons of the education FDI in terms of personal gains instead of the gains for the country, so far, these investments are providing countries with a rope to hang on to, where others are sinking (Bhaumik et al, 2003, pp 4). The number of researches conducted on the beneficial effects of FDIs outnumber those that critic them. FDIs have been so far found to directly improve the financial and educational sectors of a country (Alfaro et al, 2007, pp 7). These countries are termed as the host countries. Researches show that those countries with good links between the final and intermediary industry sectors as well as good human capital are likely to get more FDIs (Alfaro et al, 20

Organisational change management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Organisational change management - Essay Example The positive energy approach will help to build the organisations on the strengths (Cooperrider and Whitney, 2001; Cooperrider, et al., 2008). The first step in this process is identifying and describing the problems which are needed to be solved. The approach can be described in five steps: (Source: The Eye Health Summit, 2013) Definition Definition is the first phase of the Appreciative Inquiry process. It is the phase where the organisations try to find out the underlying issues of the current business process, which require immediate attention of the management. In this phase, the management makes a flow map of those factors which are creating problems in the present business process and require external enquiry. In today’s business environment, the importance of organisational change management has been one of the most widely investigated areas. The organisational change management has gained attraction to a great extent from the researchers all around the world. Accordin g to Harigopal (2006), the organisational change is an essential process associated with the growth and expansion of a particular business. It is considered to be a complex process because a change which was successful for one organisation might not be so for other organisations. Thus, it becomes necessary to check that the change is congruent to dynamism, complexity and finally the uniqueness of the respective organization. The changes taking place in the political, economic and social environment also has an effect on the individuals and the organizations. Even if the change has been a constant process but its rapidity and swiftness have always been different. It is because of this reason that the external environmental changes have forced the organizations to make certain changes in their operational systems. We find a large number of companies implementing various strategic changes for coping up with the existing challenges. In case of strategic change, the companies restructure their business or marketing plans in a wider context. The main intention of performing strategic changes in an organization is for achieving the organizational goals and harmonizing the organizational activities along with the business environment. Organizational change management is one of the most crucial activities of an organization (Chen, et al., 2013). According to Jones (2004), there are two reasons responsible for the changes in the organizations. One is the response to the changes in the external environment. Another reason is the response of the companies to a specific crisis situation. The organizational change also becomes evident when various companies undergo any change in their executive power (Haveman, Russo and Meyer, 2001). The present study deals with the investigation of the problems in D2, which is an automobile components manufacturer. The company is facing a large number of problems associated with the cost of operations. The economic downturn has resulted in the worsening of the scenario in the company. D2 had to struggle for surviving in the market. The company planned for formulation of new strategies in order to achieve the economies of scale. The new strategy which has been taken into consideration is yet to be conveyed to the employees and only the senior managers are informed about the strategy