Health care reform policies and implementation

Healthcare Economics

When considering the ever-changing and highly competitive economic landscape of the modern world; governments, businesses and institutions must remain diligent in their care and compassion for their citizens and staff members. With the current exponential growth and advancement of technology and the computerization of business and learning, voters, workers and consumers have become much more connected to the organizations they patronize (Kurzweil). Accordingly, these important groups are faced with the continuous task of finding new ways to understand and subsequently accommodate the needs of their followers, while simultaneously securing lucrative business models and job environments. One of the most important needs presented in all demographics is reliable healthcare. Thus, with the inelasticity in the demand for healthcare, countries need to determine an applicable system, whereby citizens can have access to the medical services they will inevitably need. Collective access to healthcare represents the main problem in field of healthcare for many nations (including The United States). Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the fuel to run an effective healthcare system comes in the form of money. Historically, citizens have been responsible for funding their own medical needs or even bartering with doctors for their services. However, in the modern world of American healthcare, the concept of insurance has come center stage. Health insurance allows the individual to pay only a small portion of the total amount of medical services they receive, yet they are continually paying monthly sums throughout their working lives. However, by introducing a massive amount of powerful and highly influential middle men (i.e. health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies) the costs of healthcare increased at astonishing rates, because doctors needed to retain greater protections from costly lawsuits initiated by massive healthcare organizations. And as a result of America's privatization strategy in the arena of healthcare, the government's ability to effectively regulate this essential field has been significantly diminished. Additionally, extensive lobbying on behalf of insurance companies in justification of their monthly fees to their clients also caused prices to rise to such an extent that healthcare is now seemingly unaffordable without insurance .

From a macroeconomic perspective, the government is responsible for designing and subsequently implementing systems like the one outlined above. This is often referred to as the creation and integration of "health policy." This term specifically refers a structural framework that allows businesses, municipalities and even private citizens the opportunity to access health services . Due to the aforementioned inelasticity in demand for healthcare, the government is forced to concern itself more with assuring that healthcare is made available to all demographics, while putting expenditures aside. Keeping this in mind, it could be argued that the United States government has shirked some of its democratic and regulative responsibilities in this area by universally privatizing the healthcare insurance industry (unlike its European counterparts that have nationalized healthcare) and allowing private firms to determine a great deal of their own health insurance protocols. Though while it is often argued that actual healthcare services are superior in the United States, the health and pharmaceutical industries make up a much more significant percentage of America's gross domestic product (GDP) relative to Europe . What is more, it has been argued that reliable healthcare is still not available to a large portion of hard-working American citizens. Therefore, considering the current state of affairs in the health sector, it seems like there has been a collective failure in governmental regulation and contingency planning.

In terms of microeconomics, the small businesses, citizens and organizations are responsible for adhering to the system created by the aforementioned governmental entities. As these massive macroeconomic institutions operate interactively with "health policy," smaller recipients of the systematic components are those who experience the actual "care delivery." While both of these concepts are critical aspects of healthcare economics, care delivery is essential in prolonging the lives of citizens and ensuring them the possibility of healthy lifestyles. The American healthcare system almost always places the microeconomic healthcare burden on the backs of businesses. These organizations are responsible for providing the applicable healthcare insurance packages to their employees, which usually represents a substantial cost. In fact, it has been shown that rising healthcare costs represent one of the most popular reasons for small business bankruptcy in the United States. Thus, not only does the United States' private healthcare system seem to leave many without access to health services, it also leaves many without jobs. And even the recent amendments to the healthcare system made by the Obama administration seem to be mere Band-Aids placed on the gaping wound that is the current healthcare model . In other words, thusfar there has been no collective action on behalf of any truly powerful and influential government agency to solve this growing and life-threatening healthcare problem.