Reflection on Learning

1. Explore this initiative in detail and share your thoughts on the plan.

I came across a Tweet on my Twitter feed by Healthy Maryland (@HealthyMaryland) that was passing information about an initiative they have developed to enable people to acquire health insurance. They also have a framework for health plans to help the members in financial help coverage and make healthcare effective and more affordable for Maryland. Health insurance is a framework developed to pay one’s healthcare costs and medical bills, which help get the care you need. Medicare is a health insurance for people aged 65b years and above and some with disabilities (Berchick et al., 2019). Medicaid is health insurance developed for people who generate relatively low incomes. Health insurances are essential in supporting someone when they fall sick and also helps them in avoiding sickness. This initiative is very inclusive and crucial in ensuring the people have affordable and quality healthcare services in various hospitals depending on their insurance coverage.

2. Discuss your thoughts about the Tweet and whether you can support the initiative or not. Be sure to use evidence in support of your position.

This tweet communicates in detail, explaining how they should sign up and when the insurance coverage will start covering their medical needs. This tweet aims to attract new insurance users within Maryland to prevent incurring huge costs when seeking medication and to provide them with the best quality care after they purchase the insurance coverage. I can support this initiative because it aims to ensure medical care services are disseminated effectively to the people of Maryland and reduce costs when seeking medication. Health is an expensive life aspect, and thus, everyone should take this opportunity and sign up for insurance coverage. This initiative can be popularized by advertising it via social media platforms and paying for ads to lure people into reading the prerequisites and influencing them to use the insurance coverage (Woolhandler & Himmelstein, 2017). Suppose one fails to acquire insurance coverage. They will find a hard time seeking urgent medication, and the costs of being subjected to their illness will be very high. This would have been avoided if they had acquired an insurance plan to cater for them when they fell sick. The insurance caters to almost all health costs depending on the insurance plan.

3. Within the political climate of government today, does this initiative have any hope of moving forward? Share your position based on the evidence

Within the existing political climate of the government, it has hope in moving forward and reaching many citizens from all walks of life. The government focuses on ensuring that health is taken care of, and hence, measures to ensure the utilization of healthcare settings will be of great importance. The government will play a huge role in healthcare financing by lobbying for the necessary resources and contributive mechanisms that help in pooling resources for health development. In the U.S, the Department of Health and Human Services, the principal agency for the federal government, is involved in healthcare service delivery (Carrin et al., 2017). The Department funds public insurance programs which are Medicaid and Medicare. The government also deals with setting legislations that govern the insurance programs. Therefore, this initiative will go on because the government has an integral role in funding health insurance and regulating medical devices.

4. Compose a Tweet (no more than 140 characters) that adequately addresses your response to the original post and share this Tweet in the discussion

Tweet: health insurance plays a considerable role in reducing costs incurred during healthcare acquisition and improving service delivery.

References

Berchick, E. R., Hood, E., & Barnett, J. C. (2019). Health insurance coverage in the United States: 2018 (p. 2). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce.

Woolhandler, S., & Himmelstein, D. U. (2017). The relationship of health insurance and mortality: is lack of insurance deadly?. Annals of Internal Medicine, 167(6), 424-431.

Carrin, G., Desmet, M., & Basaza, R. (2017). Social health insurance development in low-income developing countries: new roles for government and nonprofit health insurance organizations in Africa and Asia. In Building social security: The challenge of privatization (pp. 125-156). Routledge.