Healthcare Insurance History
History of Healthcare Insurance
Jacqueline Moussa
HCS/212
12/02/2012
Katherine Smith
History of Healthcare insurances in the United States
The United States is the only country where a person has options with regards to their healthcare. The U.S. allows choice in healthcare insurance, which in turn provides choice in the different aspects of healthcare like doctor, hospital, and specialist. This was not always the case as healthcare insurance has evolved over the years. The history of healthcare insurances in the United was began in the mid 1700s but did not develop until 1850, when Franklin Health Assurance Company of Massachusetts began providing accident insurance, to cover injuries associated to railroad and steamboat travel. …show more content…
After that came the sickness insurance covering all kinds of illnesses and injuries started to progress however, the first modern health insurance plans were not formed until 1930. Rather then the health insurance covering medical bills, the purpose of those plans was to compensate for the sick individuals inability to work and earn money. In the 1930s Dr. Justin Ford Kimball who was an administrator at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, developed the Baylor Plan due to lack of payments from schoolteacher for their medicals bills.
This Plan consists of teachers paying 50 cents per month in exchange for the agreement that they could obtain medical assistances for up to 21 days of any one-year. Shortly after many hospitals incorporated the Baylor ideal, by making medical coverage be more accessible. In 1939, the American Hospital Association (AHA) first used the name Blue Cross to designate healthcare plans that met their standards plans in the 1960s (Zhou, 2009). The Blue Cross Plan was a nonprofit organization; therefore it was exempt from paying taxes and usual insurance regulations, allowing the company to retain low payments. This plan was pre-paid and it covered physician and surgeon assistances, incorporating the California Physicians Service in 1939, which surfaced around that same time. These physician-sponsored plans combined into Blue Shield in 1946, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield merged into one company in 1971 (Zhou, 2009). From the 70s until the present many different insurance companies have surfaced and provided healthcare for individuals including federally …show more content…
sponsored programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The chart below exhibits the increase in individuals having access to insurance throughout the history of healthcare.
Figure 1: Number of Persons with Health Insurance (thousands), 1940-1960
(Fortune, 2005).
In summary, the chart shows the increase in enrollment to insurance through the years. It shows that the greater access the more individuals have coverage for there healthcare. Also there are many resources to finding how our healthcare history has attributed to the growth in the area of insurance. These can be found in looking at how the healthcare insurance field has grown over the years. There are now many options for healthcare insurance from private to public, from non-managed and managed care, and from expanded and restricted networks of service. Insurance is pivotal to the area of interest of healthcare administration.
If you were not informed about insurance, it would be difficult to accomplish your job as a healthcare administrator. A healthcare administrator would need to be aware of all the different kinds of insurances available, the populations they serve, the managed care portions of the insurances, and the quality of care in relation to the fiscal aspects of insurance and administration. There are positive and negative outcomes related to lack of insurance, fluctuating coverage, and how health insurance is managed. The negative outcomes relating to uninsured individuals are they could be having much less care rather than preventive for acute and chronic conditions than insured people. “Estimating the number of premature deaths attributable to lack of insurance present methodological challenges, research indicates that as many as 44,500 deaths per year in the Untied stated are linked to lack of insurance” (Bernstein et al., 2010). “Poorer health, greater disability and premature death among uninsured workers have economic consequences for their families, employers, and the overall economy” (Bernstein et al., 2010). When children to not have access to healthcare the may lose some opportunities for normal development which can cause absence from school and other activities. When adults have less access to care, they will then be more susceptible to illness, because they are not seeing a healthcare
professional regularly. Lack of insurance also causes individuals not to seek care because of expensive costs of care and medication. On the other hand having healthcare insurance has a lot of positives for people in the United States; for example, ensuring access to the different kinds of preventive services is to necessary to make sure that they have access to all the full insurance coverage. Coverage for preventive services helps to insure that there are not significant differences in health outcomes for people of different races and cultures. Health insurance helps people establish and maintain access to appropriate care, which can lead to better outcomes. “Continuous coverage also can reduce administrative costs. For example, guaranteed eligibility for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for 6 or 12 months can lower states’ administrative costs by reducing the frequent movement (called “churning”) of eligible individuals in and out of Medicaid and CHIP programs.”(Bernstein et al., 2010). The more membership a managed care plan has the services are available and the more the plan can expend its access to care.
References
Fortune, S. (2005, May 19). Congressional leaders advocate for universal health care. New York Amsterdam News. p. 4.
Zhou, Katherine. "The History of Medical Insurance in the United States." The Yale Journal of Medicine and Law. Vol. VI, Issue 1. 1 November 2009. < http://www.yalemedlaw.com/2009/11/the-history-of-medical-insurance-in-the-united-states/ >.
Bernstein, J. Chollet, D. Peterson, S. “How Does Insurance Coverage Improve Health Outcomes?.” Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. issue 1. April 2010. <http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/health/reformhealthcare_IB1.pdf>.
Jacqueline Moussa
HCS/212
12/02/2012
Katherine Smith
History of Healthcare insurances in the United States
The United States is the only country where a person has options with regards to their healthcare. The U.S. allows choice in healthcare insurance, which in turn provides choice in the different aspects of healthcare like doctor, hospital, and specialist. This was not always the case as healthcare insurance has evolved over the years. The history of healthcare insurances in the United was began in the mid 1700s but did not develop until 1850, when Franklin Health Assurance Company of Massachusetts began providing accident insurance, to cover injuries associated to railroad and steamboat travel. …show more content…
After that came the sickness insurance covering all kinds of illnesses and injuries started to progress however, the first modern health insurance plans were not formed until 1930. Rather then the health insurance covering medical bills, the purpose of those plans was to compensate for the sick individuals inability to work and earn money. In the 1930s Dr. Justin Ford Kimball who was an administrator at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, developed the Baylor Plan due to lack of payments from schoolteacher for their medicals bills.
This Plan consists of teachers paying 50 cents per month in exchange for the agreement that they could obtain medical assistances for up to 21 days of any one-year. Shortly after many hospitals incorporated the Baylor ideal, by making medical coverage be more accessible. In 1939, the American Hospital Association (AHA) first used the name Blue Cross to designate healthcare plans that met their standards plans in the 1960s (Zhou, 2009). The Blue Cross Plan was a nonprofit organization; therefore it was exempt from paying taxes and usual insurance regulations, allowing the company to retain low payments. This plan was pre-paid and it covered physician and surgeon assistances, incorporating the California Physicians Service in 1939, which surfaced around that same time. These physician-sponsored plans combined into Blue Shield in 1946, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield merged into one company in 1971 (Zhou, 2009). From the 70s until the present many different insurance companies have surfaced and provided healthcare for individuals including federally …show more content…
sponsored programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The chart below exhibits the increase in individuals having access to insurance throughout the history of healthcare.
Figure 1: Number of Persons with Health Insurance (thousands), 1940-1960
(Fortune, 2005).
In summary, the chart shows the increase in enrollment to insurance through the years. It shows that the greater access the more individuals have coverage for there healthcare. Also there are many resources to finding how our healthcare history has attributed to the growth in the area of insurance. These can be found in looking at how the healthcare insurance field has grown over the years. There are now many options for healthcare insurance from private to public, from non-managed and managed care, and from expanded and restricted networks of service. Insurance is pivotal to the area of interest of healthcare administration.
If you were not informed about insurance, it would be difficult to accomplish your job as a healthcare administrator. A healthcare administrator would need to be aware of all the different kinds of insurances available, the populations they serve, the managed care portions of the insurances, and the quality of care in relation to the fiscal aspects of insurance and administration. There are positive and negative outcomes related to lack of insurance, fluctuating coverage, and how health insurance is managed. The negative outcomes relating to uninsured individuals are they could be having much less care rather than preventive for acute and chronic conditions than insured people. “Estimating the number of premature deaths attributable to lack of insurance present methodological challenges, research indicates that as many as 44,500 deaths per year in the Untied stated are linked to lack of insurance” (Bernstein et al., 2010). “Poorer health, greater disability and premature death among uninsured workers have economic consequences for their families, employers, and the overall economy” (Bernstein et al., 2010). When children to not have access to healthcare the may lose some opportunities for normal development which can cause absence from school and other activities. When adults have less access to care, they will then be more susceptible to illness, because they are not seeing a healthcare
professional regularly. Lack of insurance also causes individuals not to seek care because of expensive costs of care and medication. On the other hand having healthcare insurance has a lot of positives for people in the United States; for example, ensuring access to the different kinds of preventive services is to necessary to make sure that they have access to all the full insurance coverage. Coverage for preventive services helps to insure that there are not significant differences in health outcomes for people of different races and cultures. Health insurance helps people establish and maintain access to appropriate care, which can lead to better outcomes. “Continuous coverage also can reduce administrative costs. For example, guaranteed eligibility for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for 6 or 12 months can lower states’ administrative costs by reducing the frequent movement (called “churning”) of eligible individuals in and out of Medicaid and CHIP programs.”(Bernstein et al., 2010). The more membership a managed care plan has the services are available and the more the plan can expend its access to care.
References
Fortune, S. (2005, May 19). Congressional leaders advocate for universal health care. New York Amsterdam News. p. 4.
Zhou, Katherine. "The History of Medical Insurance in the United States." The Yale Journal of Medicine and Law. Vol. VI, Issue 1. 1 November 2009. < http://www.yalemedlaw.com/2009/11/the-history-of-medical-insurance-in-the-united-states/ >.
Bernstein, J. Chollet, D. Peterson, S. “How Does Insurance Coverage Improve Health Outcomes?.” Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. issue 1. April 2010. <http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/health/reformhealthcare_IB1.pdf>.