The Different Healthcare Programs in United States and its Impact in Texas Health issues are among the most important and frequent topics for society debates. Indeed, health is considered as wealth by most people. Thus, knowing the importance of health for every individual, the government, together with its health department and agencies, develops various programs that aim to improve the health and living condition of the citizens.
In the United States, the government implements health programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) and Temporary Assistance for the Needy Families (TANF) to be able to support and assist the needs of American citizens primarily on health concerns. Medicaid and Medicare are both an insurance program. Yet, the difference between Medicaid and Medicare can be identified primarily by looking how their systems work and what services they have.
Medicaid, on the one hand, is a joint federal and state program which pays for services on health and care on behalf of the marginalized low-income individuals who meet the qualifications and requirements. It is the task of the Income Support Division Office or the Social Security to determine if the individual is eligible to avail this program’s services. Medicare, on the other hand, is a federal health insurance system. Their beneficiaries are those individuals whose age is 65 years and older, members of the Social Security program who have received disability benefits for 24 consecutive months, and individuals with end-stage renal disease.
For this program, the Social Security Administration Office determines the individuals who are eligible to receive such benefits (Matthews and Bermans 435-437). Meanwhile, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or CHIP, which was created based on the House Bill 20 or the Children’s Health Insurance Act, is a program that aims to provide health insurance to the marginalized and uninsured children and teens who are not yet enrolled or eligible for access to Medical Assistance.
The program provides healthcare assistance and services to children and perinatal as part of the insurance’s coverage. CHIP is being managed and administered by private health insurance companies licensed and regulated by the state’s Insurance Department (Isaacs, Knickman, Lavizzo-Mourey and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 78-80; “CHIP/Children’s Medicaid”). The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a block grant to states instituted by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.
It aims to provide financial assistance to needy family through the TANF funding granted to the states. The needy families are being provided with financial assistance and other services for the family to be able to provide proper care for their children in their own homes, to end the needy parents reliance on government aid through promoting job or work opportunities and to prevent the occurrence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies (Van Horn and Schaffner 547).