Health Care Innovation Essay Example for Free

Health Care Innovation Essay I will compare the current health care system with the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that became law on March 23, 2010. The current system, which is being phased out between 2011 and 2018 is increasingly inaccessible to many poor and lower-middle-class people. About 47 million Americans lack health insurance, an increase of more than two million people from 2005 (Rover, 2011) the increasingly complex warfare between insurers and hospitals over who pays the bills is gobbling up a great deal of money and the end result is that the United States pays roughly twice as much per capita for health care as Canada, France, and the United Kingdom yet experiences slightly lower life expectancy than those countries. President Barack Obama campaigned for the need to reform the American health care system, stating that the cost of health care was a â€Å"threat to our economy† and that health care should be a â€Å"right for every American. † (Rover, 2011) Thus began the passage of health care reform. On March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act became law. Private and Parochial schools have been competing with public schools for as long as I can remember. These schools have to show that they are worth paying for or they do not get customers. The health care industry, on the other hand does not have government competition. The old health care system gave insurance companies all the power. It is more along the lines of, pay us outrageous fees or you die. Even if you have their coverage they still look for ways to drop you from their insurance. I feel that under the new health care reform laws I will not have to worry about getting laid off and losing my health insurance coverage again. There are 92 provisions in the ACA (Affordable Care Act) that are being mplemented between the years 2011-2018. This paper, however, will only cover the provisions I feel are of concern to most lower to middle class Americans, or should I state â€Å"financially struggling like myself†. Furthermore, the ACA has a broad range of provisions that aim to advance a framework and foundation for redesigning the healthcare delivery system to one that is person-centered, offers individual control, improves quality, and integrates care across settings and providers (Shugarman, L. R. , Whitenhill, K. 2011). Key provisions undergird health and long-term care reform by improving the continuum of care within four domains: long-term care insurance, home and community-based services (HCBS) expansion, care coordination, and workforce reinforcement. Since the recession began in December 2007 nearly 7 million Americans have lost their jobs. In addition, there were an estimated 43 million uninsured prior to that; Many of whom lost the only health insurance coverage they had for themselves and their families. Former employees are given the option to buy temporary insurance through companies such as Cobra which contains provisions giving certain former employees, retirees, spouses and dependent children the right to temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates. However, this insurance is costly, well above the financial means of someone without a job. The typical cost for basic family coverage can be around $1,309. 00 per month. A cost that is nearly impossible to cover when you are unemployed or underemployed. Under the ACA, the following provisions would be considered pros for the average American: (a) Coverage will expand to cover nearly 95 percent of legal U. S. residents. Plus, preventative care will be free. (b) Increased regulation will stop insurance companies from rigging prices, for instance there was a recent 40% insurance premium increase in California. (c) Insurance companies will have to accept everyone. No more pre-existing condition exclusions. They can’t place limits on coverage anymore, either. (d) Cheaper prescriptions for seniors. e) Ensuring Free Choice. Workers who cannot afford the coverage provided by their employer may take whatever funds their employer might have contributed to their insurance and use these resources to help purchase a more affordable plan in the new health insurance exchanges. (f) Eliminating Annual Limits on Insurance Coverage. The law prohibits plans from imposing annual dollar limits on the amount of coverage an individual may receive. (g) Insurers must now reveal how much money is spent on overhead. (h) Makes Care More Affordable.  The act includes tax credits to make it easier for the middle class to afford insurance will become available for people with incomes above 100 percent and below 400 percent of poverty (i) Chain restaurants will be required to provide a nutrient content disclosure statement alongside their items. You will see calories listed both on in-store and drive-through menus of fast-food restaurants. (Affordable health care for America, 2010) Under the ACA, the following provisions would be considered cons for the average American: (a) Cuts in Medicare.  The elderly on Medicare will see their benefits changed dramatically. The biggest item being used to pay for the new program is more than $500 billion in cuts to the Medicare program at a time when 72 million baby boomers become eligible for it in the next decade. The second biggest move to pay for this is by raising and expanding the Medicare tax. (b) No new incentives for primary care physicians (c) More taxes, the government has to pay for healthcare reform somehow. Taxing businesses is a big strategy. Families earning more than $250. 00 a year will have to pay higher Medicare taxes, also, this isn’t a tax, but employers will be fined $3,000 per employee if they don’t provide affordable medical coverage. (Drea, 2010). However, the provision that is causing the most concern is the insurance mandate. Within this mandate everyone is required to be insured or else pay a fine. There is an exemption for low-income people. This mandate takes effect in 2014. (Right To Health Care, n. d) I personally feel the ACA will benefit most Americans for several reasons. First, if you do not have health insurance, you will have a choice of high quality, affordable coverage for yourself and family. Second, the reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control. Third, the reform will provide every American with some basic protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable since they will not be able to discriminate against persons with pre-existing illnesses or conditions. Lastly, Americans can now purchase their health insurance coverage with the bargaining power that was only reserved for larger companies, instead of individual policies which are extremely expensive. Bear in mind that from 2000 to 2006, health care premiums increased 87% compared to overall inflation (an increase of 3. 5%) and wages (3. 8%). A ‘Public Entity’ would help keep costs from skyrocketing (Right to Health Care, n. d). Working Americans may be experiencing something akin to sticker shock. The average cost of a family policy now exceeds $13,000 a year, having doubled over the last decade, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Similar increases over the next decade would translate to the average policy for a family costing in the neighborhood of $24. 000 a year. (Right to Health Care, n. d). I really had not paid that much attention to the new health reform act, prior to a tragedy that happened to my best friend’s family recently. One of her sisters had been covered by her employer sponsored health care plan for the last 10 years. For 8 of those years she was the picture of health, no major illnesses or accidents requiring the use of her insurance other than the occasional checkup. About 2 years ago she decided to up her yearly deductibles and co-pays from $1,200 to $6,000 in favor of a lower monthly premium to help make other household bills easier. At that time there was no reason for her to feel anything bad would happen; Had she been covered under the new ACA she may not have had to worry about paying high medical bills. Unfortunately last spring my best friend’s sister was diagnosed with bi-polar disease; a few weeks later coincidentally she also discovered she had breast cancer. Late this past summer, my best friend’s sister committed suicide. I am not saying that her health insurance situation was the main reason for her decision to take her own life, but I know her family tried many times to convince her she needed more help for her major depression. Her response was always that she could not afford it. The emotional trauma associated with her two illnesses and the constant worry over the medical bills only added to her anxiety and depression. Fear of hospital bills should not deter anyone from seeking medical care. My best friend is carrying around a lot of guilt that she could have and should have done more for her sister by insisting her sister get the medical care ecessary and not worry about how it would be paid for. Since my best friend’s sister’s death, I have come to realize that not being able to afford health care insurance could be the difference between life and death for many. How appalling to live in a country with such great wealth, yet millions face financial ruin if they are uninsured or insured and their current insurance provider decides to drop them. I am not saying that the new health care reform laws will be fix all our problems, but I feel it’s a good start, and only time will tell.

Physics of Snow :: physics snow

The most basic form of an ice crystal is a hexagonal prism. This form occurs because certain surfaces of the crystal, the growth facets, grow very slowly. The reason these facets exist derives from the molecular structure of water, and how water molecules arrange themselves into a crystalline lattice. The hexagonal prism includes two hexagonal "basal" faces and six rectangular "prism" faces. Note that the hexagonal prism can be "plate-like" or "column-like", if the length along the c-axis is short or long compared to the length along the a-axes. What kinds of snow crystals fall from the sky? Before answering this, it is useful to define what a snow crystal is. Types of frozen precipitation include: Snow crystals -- Individual, single ice crystals, often with six-fold symmetrical shapes. These grow directly from condensing water vapor in the air, usually around a nucleus of dust or some other foreign material. Typical sizes range from microscopic to at most a few millimeters in diameter. Snowflakes -- Collections of snow crystals, loosely bound together into a puff-ball. These can grow to large sizes, up to about 10 cm across in some cases, when the snow is especially wet and sticky. Rime -- Supercooled tiny water droplets (typically in a fog), that quickly freeze onto whatever they hit. For example, one often sees small droplets of rime on large snow crystals. Graupel -- Loose collections of frozen water droplets, sometimes called "soft hail." Hail -- Large, solid chunks of ice. A simple observation on a snowy day, with a low-power microscope or hand magnifying lens, quickly reveals a great variety of snow crystal shapes. Some different types include basic plate-like forms. 1) Simple sectored plate; 2) Dendritic sectored plate; 3) Fern-like stellar dendrite and basic column-like forms: 1) Hollow column, or sheath-like crystal; 2) Needle crystal More crystal types can be listed, as are described under Classification schemes. These other forms are mostly variations and combinations of the above basic types, such as plates with dendritic extensions, capped columns, etc. Under what conditions do the different types of snow crystals form? By growing snow crystals in the laboratory under controlled conditions, one finds that snow crystals grow in different forms depending mainly on the temperature and supersaturation level during growth. This is shown in a "morphology diagram," which gives the crystal shape under different conditions. At very low supersaturation levels, say less than a few percent relative to ice, crystals grow mostly as simple hexagonal prisms. The aspect ratio (ratio of sizes along the a-axis and c-axis) varies somewhat with temperature at low supersaturation, changing from plates (-2 C) to columns (-5 C) to plates (-15 C) and back to columns again (-30 C).

10 Things I Learned from Mgt-317

Organizational Behavior. 1. I learned that organizational culture is the shared values and beliefs that underlie a company’s identity. The organizational culture is passed through socialization to new employees and it influences how we behave at work. 2. I learned that different types of organizations have different types of cultures. For example, Badger Mining Corporation uses a clan culture, which resembles a family-like structure and the effectiveness is achieved through collaboration of all the employees. Apple uses an adhocracy culture and encourages innovation and creativity.Carmakers KIA uses a market culture and promotes competition inside the organization with the purpose of increasing market share and being profitable. Tech company Dell has a hierarchy culture, which promotes their employees to be efficient and reduce cost. 3. I learned that there are two types of conflicts in an organization, content or substantive based and personal or emotional based. The first on e can be solved by using creativity and innovation and can benefit the organization. The second one harms people involved because of their egos. 4.I learned that sometimes conflicts benefit the involved parties. There are two ways of stimulating functional conflict: (1) by being the devil’s advocate and (2) by using the dialectic method. The devil’s advocate works as a critic and tries to find flaws in the proposal and the dialectic method uses debate between proposals. 5. I learned that there are 5 was to resolve conflicts. (1) Competing is being assertive and not caring about other people’s concerns. (2) Accommodating is unassertive and cooperative, an individual neglects his own rights to satisfy the concerns of others. 3) Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative. When avoiding, an individual does not immediately pursue either his or her own concerns or those of the other person. (4) Collaborating is assertive and cooperative. When collaborating, an individu al attempts to work with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies the concerns of both. (5) Compromising is intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. When compromising the objective is to find an expedient, mutually acceptable solution that partially satisfies both parties. 6.I learned that I am more efficient when I work in teams. Throughout the semester we had to work in teams not only for our project but also in small class activities. I really enjoyed working with different people with different characteristics. 7. I learned that most of the time I am intrinsically motivated. I am at one point of my life where money is not a problem. My family is able to support me while I live here in Boston and go to school. I realized that I do with passion the things that I love and that there are no external rewards that can change that. 8.I learned that my decision making style was both directive and analytical. I am a person that likes facts and makes decisio ns based on logic. I like analyzing all the possible aspects of a situation and all possible outcomes before making a decision but sometimes I tend to overanalyze a situation. 9. I learned how to be an effective team member. How to interact with my teammates and how to contribute with my ideas in order to be part of a successful team. 10. I learned that my learning style is being an accommodator because I am very open to new experiences and I learn from them based on trial and error.

Biography of Hedy Lamarr - 1684 Words

In our time period now, Hedy Lamarr helped build the foundation of some most revolutionary technology; she made great contributions to human culture. There is a website which describes a basic background of that time period, According to the article hedylamarr.org which said that after the World War II, Hedy Lamarr who wanted to make a greater contribution to the design of the control of torpedoes. Because radio control guidance system is too vulnerable to be damaged, so it is never be produced at that time. After I read an article which mainly discuss the culture background at that time, the article is â€Å"Most Beautiful Woman By Day, Inventor By Night† written by NPR STAFF, this article said the inspire of Hedy Lamarr is coming from the Second World War, because the German submarines was attacking the public ship, so Lamarr is trying to help the Allied, she got inspired from the torpedoes, and then which became the first step of the technology she invent in the future. Also, I am surprised on how can she become a great inventor when she was also a famous movie star in Hollywood, actually I believe she is a kind woman, because she is trying to help the Allied to escape the attack of the German submarines. According to an article â€Å"Australia: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century’s† which mainly discussed about how were some Jewish women succeed in Austria from the 19th century to 20th century. Almost Jews were survived from the Holocaust between 1946 and 1954, as the article saidShow MoreRelatedLena Horne9265 Words   |  38 Pageswrite-ups in magazines like Time and Life, increasing her emerging stardom. By March 1943, she was back in Hollywood for what would be her busiest time of filmmaking. MGM loaned her to 20th Century-Fox for another all-black musical, a fictionalized film biography of dancer Bill Bojangles Robinson called Stormy Weather, in which she co-starred with Robinson himself and again sang the title song, which became her signature tune. The opening of Cabin in the Sky in April found her on the road making appearances