List of healthcare reform advocacy groups in the United States

Last updated

Healthcare reform advocacy groups in the United States are non-profit organizations in the US who have as one of their primary goals healthcare reform in the United States.

Contents

These notable organizations address issues such as universal healthcare, national health insurance, and single-payer healthcare.

Advocacy groups

Campaigns within larger groups

Policy institutes

See also

Related Research Articles

Health care reform is for the most part governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medicare (Canada)</span> Canadas publicly funded, single-payer health care system

Medicare is an unofficial designation used to refer to the publicly funded single-payer healthcare system of Canada. Canada's health care system consists of 13 provincial and territorial health insurance plans, which provide universal healthcare coverage to Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and depending on the province or territory, certain temporary residents. The systems are individually administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guidelines set by the federal government. The formal terminology for the insurance system is provided by the Canada Health Act and the health insurance legislation of the individual provinces and territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Medical Association</span> United States association of physicians and medical students

The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016.

Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system.

The term managed care or managed healthcare is used in the United States to describe a group of activities intended to reduce the cost of providing health care and providing American health insurance while improving the quality of that care. It has become the predominant system of delivering and receiving American health care since its implementation in the early 1980s, and has been largely unaffected by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

...intended to reduce unnecessary health care costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on inpatient admissions and lengths of stay; the establishment of cost-sharing incentives for outpatient surgery; selective contracting with health care providers; and the intensive management of high-cost health care cases. The programs may be provided in a variety of settings, such as Health Maintenance Organizations and Preferred Provider Organizations.

The American Medical Student Association (AMSA), founded in 1950 and based in Washington, D.C., is an independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States. AMSA is a student-governed national organization.They have a membership of 68,000 medical students, premedical students, interns, medical residents, and practicing physicians from across the country.

Health care prices in the United States of America describes market and non-market factors that determine pricing, along with possible causes as to why prices are higher than other countries. Compared to other OECD countries, U.S. healthcare costs are one-third higher or more relative to the size of the economy (GDP). According to the CDC, during 2015 health expenditures per-person were nearly $10,000 on average, with total expenditures of $3.2 trillion or 17.8% GDP. Proximate reasons for the differences with other countries include: higher prices for the same services and greater use of healthcare. Higher administrative costs, higher per-capita income, and less government intervention to drive down prices are deeper causes. While the annual inflation rate in healthcare costs has declined in recent decades; it still remains above the rate of economic growth, resulting in a steady increase in healthcare expenditures relative to GDP from 6% in 1970 to nearly 18% in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Physicians Alliance</span>

The National Physicians Alliance (NPA) was a 501(c)(3) national, multi-specialty medical organization founded in 2005. The organization's mission statement was: "The National Physicians Alliance creates research and education programs that promote health and foster active engagement of physicians with their communities to achieve high quality, affordable health care for all. The NPA offers a professional home to physicians across medical specialties who share a commitment to professional integrity and health justice." In 2019, they merged with Doctors for America.

Health insurance in the United States is any program that helps pay for medical expenses, whether through privately purchased insurance, social insurance, or a social welfare program funded by the government. Synonyms for this usage include "health coverage", "health care coverage", and "health benefits". In a more technical sense, the term "health insurance" is used to describe any form of insurance providing protection against the costs of medical services. This usage includes both private insurance programs and social insurance programs such as Medicare, which pools resources and spreads the financial risk associated with major medical expenses across the entire population to protect everyone, as well as social welfare programs like Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, which both provide assistance to people who cannot afford health coverage.

Healthcare reform in the United States has a long history. Reforms have often been proposed but have rarely been accomplished. In 2010, landmark reform was passed through two federal statutes enacted in 2010: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed March 23, 2010, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which amended the PPACA and became law on March 30, 2010.

Healthcare-NOW! is a non-profit grassroots coalition in support of the single-payer health care movement for the United States. Healthcare-NOW!'s stated goal is to implement the Medicare for All Act.

The healthcare reform debate in the United States has been a political issue focusing upon increasing medical coverage, decreasing costs, insurance reform, and the philosophy of its provision, funding, and government involvement.

Doctors for America is a 501(c)(3) national, multi-specialty organization of physicians and medical students in the United States with a stated goal of improving affordable health care access. The movement, which was created by the Obama campaign, was started in 2008 as "Doctors for Obama" and rapidly grew to 10,000 members within a few months.

Healthcare rationing in the United States exists in various forms. Access to private health insurance is rationed on price and ability to pay. Those unable to afford a health insurance policy are unable to acquire a private plan except by employer-provided and other job-attached coverage, and insurance companies sometimes pre-screen applicants for pre-existing medical conditions. Applicants with such conditions may be declined cover or pay higher premiums and/or have extra conditions imposed such as a waiting period.

National Coalition on Health Care(NCHC) is a coalition of groups working to achieve comprehensive health system reform. Founded in 1990 by Dr. Henry E. Simmons, M.D., NCHC is a non-profit alliance of more than 80 organizations.

There were a number of different health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration. Key reforms address cost and coverage and include obesity, prevention and treatment of chronic conditions, defensive medicine or tort reform, incentives that reward more care instead of better care, redundant payment systems, tax policy, rationing, a shortage of doctors and nurses, intervention vs. hospice, fraud, and use of imaging technology, among others.

Health care in the United States far outspends that of any other nation, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP. Despite this, the country has significantly worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer nations. The United States is the only developed nation without a system of universal health care, with a large proportion of its population not carrying health insurance, a substantial factor in the country's excess mortality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare</span>

Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare (CUE) is a coalition of health advocacy consumer groups interested in evidence-based healthcare. It was formed in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coalition on Psychiatric Emergencies</span>

The Coalition on Psychiatric Emergencies (CPE) is a collaborative working group of behavioral health, psychiatry, and emergency medicine professionals headed by the Emergency Medicine Foundation. COPE represents severalprofessional organizations, making it a large collaborative in the field of emergency psychiatry in the United States. COPE is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Helen L. Smits was a health policy influencer and advocate in the United States, and lent her voice to several healthcare initiatives abroad. Most notably, she was a recipient of the Fulbright scholarship and served under the Carter and Clinton administrations. She also held positions in government organizations including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Healthcare Financing Administration.

References

  1. "Doctors for America (DFA) and The National Physicians Alliance (NPA) Join Forces". National Physicians Alliance. 2019-02-14. Retrieved 2019-06-12.