Hsm 541 American Hospital Association; Advocacy Issues. Rural Health Care

Written Assignment Week 5

American Hospital Association: Advocacy Issues

Rural Health Care

HSM 541 Health Service Systems

Rural communities are faced with a lot of the same health care issues and challenges that confront the rest of the United States. Increasing heath care costs, large numbers of uninsured, underinsured, and an over extended health care infrastructure. There are some different and unique health care issues that face rural people and rural communities. The rural economy differs in its composition, thus making issues of uninsured and under insured more prevalent in the rural areas. Rural people are usually less insured, underinsured, and more dependent on the individual insurance market. There are twice as many underinsured in rural nonadjacent areas (areas not adjacent to a metropolitan area) as in urban areas. Challenges for the underinsured are ultimately similar to those of the uninsured (Ziller, 2006). This problem becomes worse as the cost of health insurance premiums rise and there is more out-of-pocket expense which results in more of the self-employed and small businesses discontinuing coverage for themselves and their employees due to the cost or having a higher deductible with less coverage.

Rural populations are now older, poorer and have less employer-based health insurance coverage; therefore a larger segment of the rural population is dependent upon public health care programs such as State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP), Medicare and Medicaid (National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services, 2008). Unfortunately, many rural people and businesses are not eligible for the public assistance programs.

The strengths of public health insurance plans are what rural communities and businesses need; stability and cost controls while providing health insurance access to rural populations, low-and moderate income families, small business employers and employees, and the self-employed (Hacker, 2008)....