Economic Terms and Health Care History

Economic Terms and Health Care History

HCS 440

August 29, 2011

Economic Terms and Health Care History

To understand our current healthcare system, you need to understand the history and how healthcare started and evolved in the United States. ("How Did Healthcare Come About In The United States?", 2012).There have been many changes of the years. This paper will give a brief history and timeline as well as the evolution of health care economic and an understanding of some key Economic terms.

The definition of Health Care Economic is a social system that studies the supply and demand of health care resources and the effect of health services on a population. ("Mosby'S Medical Dictionary, 8th Edition.", 2009). The cost of health care has risen significantly in the past decade.

Before 1920, doctors didn't know enough about diseases to really provide much useful care to sick people and therefore they didn't charge very much. ("How Did Healthcare Come About In The United States?", 2012). Not only did they not pay very much they also traded services such as a farmer may give farm products like milk or eggs for an visit to the doctor. Only a few big employers offered health insurance; everyone else paid out of their own pockets. Most patients were treated in their homes. . ("How Did Healthcare Come About In The United States?", 2012).

The first step for health care insurance came in the 1930’s. To help ease the healthcare problem, Baylor Hospital in Dallas created a system - which eventually became Blue Cross - to help people pay their hospital bills.("How Did Healthcare Come About In The United States?", 2012).

Due to others seeing how successful blue cross and blue shield became, this prompted other people to open other insurance companies. In the 1940’s employer provided healthcare began. In 1960 the United States government enacted government- healthcare. They did this because they felt that...