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Home Health Aides at Risk of Losing InsuranceLeah BiggerstaffDiane HillKent State University19 January 2019Home health aides are an important facet to the medical field around the world. While most of them don’t have nearly as much training as RNs in hospitals, home health aides are still qualified to insurance like anyone else. During our visit in Greece we had the opportunity to visit their immigration medical center. The key speaker shared information about insurance benefits health care providers such as physicians, RN’s, and home health aides receive. Greece, like many European countries have a universal health care system set in place. A universal health care system is defined as a health care system that provides health care and financial protection to all citizens of a particular country. I believe our country should offer this type of health care system. The article I found discusses home health aides losing insurance on npr.org, it mentions also how little they are paid annually. It is true that home health aides make measly salaries, “The average annual salary for home health workers is $20,000 a year.” (Luthra, 2017, par. 4) Clients’ needs vary depending on their condition. Some home health aides take care of quadriplegics, while others simply take care of clients that are legally blind. For example, I am a home health aide and get paid roughly ten dollars an hour, which is above minimum wage, but I could not live alone off this salary. If the US was able to provide health care benefits to its citizens like Greece, I believe it would take a huge financial burden off many people in our country.I don’t survive off this job like my coworkers do. I don’t have insurance through this job, and I don’t need it since I am still on my parents’ plan. I personally have never been affected by the Affordable Care Act. My coworkers have. Also, there are patients I take care of in hospital settings that rely on the Affordable Care Act. I understand where they are coming from. Health insurance is a necessity. If people spend all their salary money on medical bills, then they cannot afford the simple needs, such as food, or shelter. “We don’t have enough money at the end of the month to buy essential things, like deodorant,’ she says. ‘We go to the food bank four times a month. Without Medicaid, it would be really hard on [our family], trying to come up with the money to go the doctor.’” (Luthra, 2017, par. 20) The goal for medicine is to prevent people from becoming sick, or healing ailments. Everyone is allowed to be healthy, yet some will not be able to afford insurance if the Affordable Care Act is replaced under the Trump administration. It is true we will never know if Trump’s new health plan would have been better or worse since it never passed, but it’s a scary thought to millions of Americans who barely scrape by on a day to day basis, that they will lose their insurance. As a home health aide, I understand where the fear comes from. We don’t get paid much, and my coworkers can’t afford insurance without the Affordable Care Act. Even the clients we take care of have insurance that pays for us to take care of them. It’s hard to focus on patient centered care if people are worrying about themselves. If anything, a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would decrease the amount of home health aides, who are rare as it is. It can be a tough job, and if people’s livelihood is at risk, then they may move on to greener pastures where they are guaranteed insurance to take care of themselves and their families. Without home health aides to take care of all the disabled individuals, who will? Most likely nurses will have to take care of them in hospital settings. Nurses across the world aren’t in a position to be taking on more patients due to under staffing. Not to mention on top of that, the new patients will cost hospitals a lot more money. Home health aides exist to keep the disabled individuals out of hospitals and at their homes. Nurses cannot do everything themselves. The health care system would not work as effectively if all the home health aides were to disappear due to a lack of insurance. Our country still has a lot more to learn when it comes to affordable health insurance. ReferencesLuthra, S. (2017). Home Health Aides Fear They’ll Lose Hard-Won Insurance Coverage. KaiserHealth News, Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/healthshots/2017/03/31/522082858/home-health-aides-fear-theyll-lose-hard-won-insurancecoverage