Financing Healthcare in the United States

After reading Mooney, Knox, & Schacht, Chapter #2, you have learned the following about the financing of American healthcare. Medicare is a federal funded program that provides medical insurance primarily to the elderly and disabled. Medicaid is a federal and state funded program that provides medical insurance to the eligible poor. The original Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the legislation to expand private medical insurance coverage to more Americans primarily by the “individual mandate” to obtain private medical insurance; creating medical insurance exchanges to purchase and compare private medical insurance, and expanding Medicaid. A single-payer system is publicly funded medical insurance, which replaces private insurance companies.