Health Care Financing
Reasons for the high medical costs
According Goodwin a ‘Health Day’ reporter half of Americans are concerned and worried about the rising costs of health insurance and health care. A larger number of the worried Americans blame the profit ego of the drug and insurance companies that provide health financing. In a poll conducted by the new Harris Interactive/Health Day poll most Americans cited various reasons for this rise in costs. The cited reasons were:
$11. The high profit ego of health and drug insurance companies.
$12. The high number of tests ordered by doctors due to malpractice based worries.
$13. The high expenditure on advertisement by drug companies that is passed on to patients.
$14. A rise in heath care demand due to a large aging population.
$15. An increase in the pricing of new medical tests, technology as well as treatment.
In my opinion these are indeed the reasons that spur the high medical costs higher(Goodwin, 2010)
The value of health related issues and services
Health issues are handled with care and keenness because they involve life and as such are regarded to be of paramount importance. Thus, more emphasis is laid on proper training because there are no second chances in medical mishaps. Therefore, that is why individuals are willing to pay for high quality medical care. Similarly, those training in the medial field have to put more emphasis and time in their studies to deliver the best in saving lives. Thus, the importance of life is what makes any medical related service a costly service. Indeed most people are willing to pay extra money to acquire quality medical care because it involves their lives which are the most treasured possession. As a result people tend to receive health care in accordance to how much they are willing to part in paying for the health care. It would be wrong to say that if we stopped caring about health its cost would go down and the savings be re-invested elsewhere. This is because all development activities are performed by healthy members of society who will cease to exist if we cared less about health. Thus, the rest of the activities would be grounded too (Getzen, 2010).
Factors influencing the trends in the health care system
The factors that influence health can be divided into three categories. The first category includes the financial providers for the industry such as the insurance and medical firms. The second category of factors, are based on the consumers of health care. These include the patients from the general population and their health status as well purchasing capacity and choices. The last category is composed of the general state of economy and its component factors that determine the state of the economy (Getzen, 2010).
Health economics
According to Getzen (2007) the health sector forms an inter-connected industry and market like any other industries in a country’s economy. Thus, apart from taking care of people’s lives the industry has a business/economic aspect like any other industry. Thus, factors of economy such as demand, supply and pricing apply to the sector too. This is because the sector involves people in it that work for a living by delivering services and producing goods that ensure health care is delivered.
Investment in medical research
Investment in research is done to facilitate the discovery of new effective treatment drugs, therapies as well as procedures. The research also seeks to provide better and cheaper treatments. As a result, investors in the medical industry are mostly the health financiers like insurers because they intend to cut their expenditures on paying for expensive treatments. Other providers include the federal government which invests out of the interests based in its mandate to provide better health services to its citizens. The researches at times yield no results even after consuming alot of resources. Therefore, these costs have to be passed on the patients and policy holders. Similarly, new discoveries are highly priced in order to cover for the expenses that went into the research Getzen, 2007).
References
Getzen, T. E. (2007). Health Economics and Financing, third edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Publishers Incorporation.
Goodwin, J. (2010). Poll Finds Americans Blame Insurers and Drug Companies for Rising Health Costs. Retrieved from, http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=114696, viewed on 30th May 2010.
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