Describe five U.S. governmental organizations and their roles in health care.
| The student will be able to:
■ Describe five U.S. governmental organizations and their roles in health care. ■ Discuss the role of the Administration for Children and Families regarding children and families. ■ Analyze the integration of the collaboration of the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its importance to disaster management. ■ Describe the role of the National Institutes of Health in healthcare research. ■ Discuss the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory responsibility in health care. ■ Evaluate the role of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in health care. |
| DID YOU KNOW THAT? |
| ■ Social regulation focuses on actions such as those in the healthcare industry that impact an individual’s safety or well-being.
■ The U.S. Surgeon General is the chief health educator in the United States. ■ The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for accrediting and inspecting mammography facilities. ■ The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for ensuring that all governmental levels have an emergency preparedness plan for catastrophic events. ■ The Affordable Care Act created the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Innovation Center for the purpose of testing “innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures and improve the quality of health care.” |
▶ Introduction
During the Depression and World War II the United States had no funds to start a universal healthcare program—an issue that had been discussed for years. As a result, a private-sector system was developed that did not provide healthcare services to all citizens. However, the government’s role in providing healthcare coverage evolved to being a regulatory body to ensure that the elderly and poor were able to receive health care. The passage of the Social Security Act of 1935 and the establishment of the Medicaid and Medicare programs in 1965 mandated the government’s increased role in providing healthcare coverage. Also, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), now the Children’s Health Insurance Program, established in 1997 and reauthorized by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through 2019, continues to expand the government’s role in children’s health care. The laws require states, upon enactment, to maintain current income eligibility levels for CHIP through September 30, 2019 ( CHIP, 2016 ). In addition to the reauthorization of the CHIP program, the ACA increased governmental interaction with the healthcare system by developing several of the governmental initiatives that focus on increasing the ability of individuals to make informed decisions about their health care.
In these instances, the government increased accessibility to health care as well as provided financing for health care to certain targeted populations. This chapter will focus on the different roles the federal, state, and local governments play in the U.S. healthcare system. This chapter will also highlight different governmental programs and regulations that focus on monitoring how health care is provided.