Who invented health insurance

The precursor to Aetna started as a life insurance company, which specialized in fire insurance , in the s. Through multiple acquisitions, including the purchase of Prudential HealthCare, Aetna became one of the largest and most well-known providers of health benefits in the U.

Today, health insurance is a billion-dollar industry and healthcare expenditures are in the trillions. These industries are expected to continue to grow. With the boom of healthcare costs, it is becoming more and more important that your students have access to a competitive health insurance plan. Notice of Data Security Incident. Internal Medicine. In , the first U. It offered insurance against injuries received during an accident. Individual hospitals and in , employers offered pre-paid plans to help cover the cost of medical expenses.

Employer- or union sponsored health insurance became commonplace after World War II when it was offered as a benefit to compensate for limited wages, or as a recruiting tool in job categories with high demand and limited supply. President Truman began throwing around the idea of a government-sponsored health plan during this post-war period.

In the s, changes in the law allowed managed care through HMOs. Use online tools to help you quickly find the plan that best suits your needs.

And, enroll in minutes on your computer or mobile device using our quick and easy online process. Enrollment is open! Apply now for December 1st. Health insurance has not always been a necessity of American life. The relatively recent invention of health coverage merged into the concept of employer-provided insurance.

Understanding one requires a knowledge of the other. Health insurance is a way to protect your future finances by paying monthly investments to an insurance company. When you need health care, the insurer covers all or part of the cost, depending on your plan.

In America, health insurance has evolved from non-existent to a luxury to an employer-provided benefit to a requirement. Insurance typically comes in two forms: public and private. Your employer may pay for private plans, or you can purchase the coverage directly from an insurer.

Most Americans carry a form of private coverage. Meanwhile, the government subsidizes public plans for certain groups of people — Medicaid covers low-income individuals while Medicare covers the elderly. Today, the number of uninsured in the United States has declined for the first time since In , the number of uninsured was 44 million. After the Affordable Care Act required all Americans to carry insurance in , the uninsured number dropped by almost half to 28 million Americans.

Then, the U. Initially, people paid what they could for professional health care, which often meant people went without, seeking care only in life-or-death situations.

The avoidance of hospitals came from their poor reputation. Hospitals improved in their care and success rates, especially with the introduction of sanitation measures and antibiotics. The earliest inklings of what would evolve into health insurance appeared in lumber companies in Washington state in the s. At the time, the companies paid a pair of doctors to offer care to their employees. Hospitals in Texas banded together in to create a means of helping patients pay for care.

This first health insurance, Blue Cross, helped cover the costs of a hospital stay. Dallas-area teachers were some of the first to benefit from hospital expense coverage in return for a cent monthly premium. Eventually, the idea caught on with the local media and spread through the north Texas area until three million people were members of Blue Cross in The insurance allowed teachers and other earners of modest incomes a means of avoiding bankruptcy if they required medical care.

In California, another group sought to solve this problem by creating Blue Shield to cover doctor visits. In , the two merged to become the insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield, which still operates today. During the s, innovations in medicine meant hospitals could save lives that would have been lost in the past.

These discoveries, such as intravenous anesthetic also increased the costs of care. The demand for insurance that would pay for the higher costs was soon to increase dramatically. By , NHE accounted for 8. Under the Reagan Administration , regulations loosened across the board, and privatization of healthcare became increasingly common.

This provided health insurance access to the recently unemployed who might have otherwise had difficulty purchasing private insurance due to a pre-existing condition, for example.

By , NHE accounted for Like others before him, the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton , saw that this rapid increase in healthcare expenses would be damaging to the average American and attempted to take action. Shortly after being sworn in, Clinton proposed the Health Security Act of Multiple issues stood in the way of the Clinton plan, including foreign affairs, the complexity of the bill, an increasing national deficit, and opposition from big business.

The final healthcare contribution from the Clinton Administration was part of the Balanced Budget Act of In the meantime, employers were trying to find ways to cut back on healthcare costs. In some cases, this meant offering HMOs , which by design, are meant to cost both the insurer and the enrollee less money.

Typically this includes cost-saving measures, such as narrow networks and requiring enrollees to see a primary care physician PCP before a specialist. Generally speaking, insurance companies were trying to gain more control over how people received healthcare. This strategy worked overall — the '90s saw slower healthcare cost growth than previous decades.

By the year , NHE accounted for When George W. Bush was elected the 43rd President of the United States, he wanted to update Medicare to include prescription drug coverage. Enrollment was and still is voluntary, although millions of Americans use the program. The history of healthcare slowed down at that point, as the national healthcare debate was tabled while the U. This period of time would bring a new, but divisive chapter in the history of healthcare in America. When Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States in , he wasted no time getting to work on healthcare reform.

He worked closely with Senator Ted Kennedy to create a new healthcare law that mirrored the one Kennedy and Nixon worked on in the '70s. The bill would establish an open Marketplace, on which insurance companies could not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

American citizens earning less than percent of the poverty level would qualify for subsidies to help cover the cost. The law represented the most significant overhaul and expansion of healthcare coverage since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid back in Because the law was complex and the first of its kind, the government issued a multi-year rollout of its provisions. The first open enrollment season for the Marketplace started in October , and it was rocky, to say the least.

Businesses today are dealing with an overwhelming number of legal requirements. We provide a first place to turn for extensive and dependable guidance and support for Federal and State compliance issues large and small. Learn more about our compliance services here. Nevertheless, 8 million people signed up for insurance through the ACA Marketplace during the first open enrollment season, with enrollment peaking in at At launch, the ACA was met with heavy opposition for a variety of reasons - the individual mandate and the employer mandate being two of the most hotly contested.

Some provisions were even taken before the Supreme Court on the basis of constitutionality. In addition, critics highlighted the problems with healthcare. Though many were largely symbolic, Congress has voted well over 50 times to repeal the ACA. Regardless of the controversy, it could be argued that the most helpful part of the ACA was its pre-existing condition clause.

Over the course of the 20th century, insurance companies began denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions, such as asthma, heart attacks, strokes, and AIDS.

The exact point when pre-existing conditions were targeted for exclusion is debatable, but very possibly, it occurred as for-profit insurance companies popped up across the landscape. Back in the '20s, not-for-profit Blue Cross charged the same amount, regardless of age, sex, or pre-existing condition, but eventually, they changed their status to compete with the newcomers.

And as the cost of healthcare increased, so did the number of people being denied coverage. In addition, the ACA allowed for immediate coverage of maternal and prenatal care, which had previously been far more restrictive in private insurance policies. Usually, women had to pay an additional fee for maternity coverage for at least 12 months prior to prenatal care being covered — otherwise, the pregnancy was viewed as a pre-existing condition and services involving prenatal care bloodwork, ultrasounds, check-ups, etc.

Many who study our healthcare system wonder why, even after the passage of the ACA, such a large number of people remain uninsured. While there are several reasons for this, the primary factors include; undocumented immigrates who are ineligible for Medicare or Marketplace coverage, people eligible for financial assistance under the ACA but unaware that assistance exists, and poor adults living in states that did not expand Medicaid.

The day President Trump was inaugurated, January 20, , he issued an executive order directing administration officials "to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay" implementing parts of the ACA, while Congress prepared to repeal and replace President Obama's signature healthcare law. Since that time, the Trump administration has resorted to systematically dismantling the ACA via a piecemeal approach designed to self-admittedly destabilize the program.

Then, in December of , as part of the tax reconciliation act, the "individual mandate" was struck down. It required all U. The mandate worked to ensure that healthy individuals were part of the insurance pool, thereby spreading risk, a fundamental and necessary element of a successful insurance market.