Question

Explain provisions of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that affect the delivery of quality health care. Should government be mandating such actions or should the market dictate levels of quality?

Answer 1

In order to reduce Medicare spending, the act reduced payments to health service providers such as hospitals, doctors, and nurse practitioners.

The provisions of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that affected the delivery of quality healthcare issues for rural citizens’ healthcare through partnerships between the federal government, state government, rural Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), acute care hospitals, EMS, and rural communities.

To maintain and improve the quality of healthcare government should be mandating such actions rather than market dictate the levels of quality as the corporate intervention will commercialize the issue, do to which the quality of healthcare will suffer.