The economic recession continues to harm every aspect of life including the health care services that many Americans with and without insurance rely on. The “safety nets” of the health care system, such as community health centers and health departments, as well as public hospitals, are seeing more patients than ever before. On the other hand, requests for life insurance quotes in a recession generally go up, according to InsWeb.
The recession being as it is, many Americans have to lay off their own workers because they don’t have the funding to pay for their insurance. Additionally, health care centers rely on charitable donations, which have dwindled as the economy has gotten worse and worse.
People can’t dig into their own pocketbooks to help our centers in need when they are barely making due themselves. According to a report by kaisernetwork.org, about 1,200 community health centers, 1,100 public hospitals and nearly 3,000 local health departments have become increasingly busy in the past few months and are having a difficult time managing the waves of new customers needing health services.
Health Services Floundering
This is particularly fear-inspiring, as more and more Americans are losing their jobs — and with it goes their health insurance coverage. For many people, a visit to the local public hospital is the only place to get care when they are ill or injured. Medicaid has also started to delay some elective surgeries because there is just no money to cover the procedures. Everyone seems to be waiting for a bailout, and I believe that health care seems to be overlooked as the big banks get the checks for the money that most of us will never see.
The care for those without insurance can only be getting worse as there are fewer people working at the facilities that they rely on. Everything from the waiting times to see a doctor, to the amount of time a doctor actually spends with a patient have to be suffering. The economic recession is having a huge effect on heath care and those that are uninsured and I am not sure enough is being done to bailout the heath care system that was broken to begin with.
Will the Stimulus Bill Be Enough?
The recent stimulus bill passed with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going to be funneling $3.5 billion (out of the bill’s total $787 billion) directly into the health care system. This amount does seem impressive when you think about billions of dollars, but in reality, $3.5 billion is only .44% of the total bill’s amount. Is directing .44% of rescue funds going to be enough to save our ailing health care system?
I agree that first getting the “safety nets” of the health care world back on their feet is essential, because having a strong back up is always necessary in case any kind of system or procedure fails. But what do we do if the $3.5 billion is enough enough to accomplish that, and maybe open a few more health care clinics? Does that solve the mess we currently find ourselves in? I think that the Obama administration needs to take a long, hard look at how the stimulus money is being dispersed, and think about if Americans can continue to live with the kind of health care system we currently have.
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