Health Insurance Essay
Over the years, there has been concerns over what the high rates of uninsured people in the United States despite frantic efforts by successive governments. Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, are some of the legislations that have been made to ensure citizens acquired medical coverage. Moreover, there are many insurance providers for the different categories of individuals in the US. A better example of such a plan is Tricare, which is a representation of employer sponsored health insurance (ESI) that caters for military personnel. Its coverage and access rate is influenced by offer and acceptance rates.
The offer rates for insurance coverage by employers have decreased significantly over the years. According to Long, Rae, Claxton, and Damico, (2016), the offer rate in 2014 was 66% as opposed to the 71% that was offered by employers in 1999. Such a decline implies that as less people are offered insurance coverage by employers, fewer of them get covered. Moreover, the authors portend that organisations offer coverage to full time workers that work more than 30 hours a day. Therefore, coverage rates by Tricare insurance are dependent on employees’ traits like time worked and offer rates.
The number of insured people in the US in 2015 was lowest in the military category. Some studies have suggested that more individuals are covered by private insurance plans and their employers than those under Tricare (Barnett & Vornovitsky, 2016). Perhaps, this is due to the fact that there are fewer military personnel in the country. In 2017 these rates still remained the same (Berchick, Hood, and Barnett, 2018). Thus, plan providers should encourage people to enrol for coverage to decrease the uninsured rates.
Overall, according to ESI statistics, Tricare insurance rates depends on the employer offer rates and the employees’ working hours. Moreover, Tricare caters for the medical needs of the fewest number of people when sorted according to plan provider.
References
Barnett, J. C., & Vornovitsky, M. S. (2016). Health insurance coverage in the United States: 2015. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Berchick, E. R., Hood, E., & Barnett, J. C. (2018). Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2017. Current Population Reports, P60-264. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office
Long, M., Rae, M., Claxton, G., & Damico, A. (2016). Trends in employer-sponsored insurance offer and coverage rates, 1999-2014. Washington: The Kaiser Family Foundation.
