Health Care Economics Essays (Examples)

Health Care Economics
Medical Care is never free, although the individual may pay nothing?

Medical Care is both a commodity and a service. The process of consuming medical care has a cost, even if the after insurance price is zero to the consumer. For instance, there are hard costs that include the buildings, equipment and supplies that house the medical care or office. There are the wages that are paid for the administration and provision of healthcare, and a cost for every procedure, every drug, and every minute of healthcare operations. In an economy in which there is insurance coverage, costs are not static, but variable. The "cost" of something may be $100, but because of economies of scale and negotiations, the payment for that service may only be $60 once the insurance company has verified the claim. The individual may pay nothing of that if their firm pays their…

This is being done by disseminating and using practice guidelines for various medical conditions and by profiling individual physicians' provision rates.
Demand side cost sharing is where patients must contribute more to their healthcare by paying more in copayments and deductibles. One recent advance in health care financing is the health savings account (HSA). These plans rely heavily on patient cost-sharing. An HSA basically provides health insurance along with a tax favored vehicle for savings. Consumers can use this money for qualified medical expenses during the current year or chose to save it for future medical expenses. They idea is that people will think twice before spending it, since spending it takes away from what they can save.

In my opinion supply side cost sharing is the best. There is so much waste and abuse that goes on in the health care industry that simply cleaning some of this up…

Besides the health care has strong externality influences than that of other goods and services. The cost of caring a sick person may entail heavy financial burden on the patient's family.
In the real world markets for other goods and services tends to approach towards market perfection that assumes a strict set of conditions such as, perfect information, several sellers and buyers, a uniform type of product and freedom to enter and exit that makes certain that the firms producing the goods and services are only price takers, which are producing at the lowest probable cost in the long run and only capable of earning normal profits. The market fails when the producers have the authority to considerably influence the price or the total amount of quantity being produced. Doctors and other suppliers of health care sometimes have such enhanced authority. Moreover, the healthcare faces the problems of risk and…

health care economics. Terms: Quality, resources cost.
Quality, resources and costing health care

The modern day health care providers are subjected to incremental pressures. They are for instance required to best respond to the changing health care issues of the contemporaneous population, to the growing demands and expectations of the stakeholders -- patients, partners, the public, governmental and non-governmental agencies and so on (Wolper, 2004) -- and to do all of this with as little resources as possible. In other words, health care institutions are expected to maximize their output while minimizing their input.

In such a context, the health care community becomes focused not only on attending to its patients at a generic level, but also on attending to the multifaceted needs of the patients and doing so in a context of limited input. In other words, an ongoing focus of the modern day heath care community is on…

Health Care Economics
Heath care economics

The health care sector in the United States is faced with a series of challenges given by the dynamic and changing features of the modern day society. Two notable challenges in this sense are represented by moral hazard and demand inducement. These are best explained below:

"First, because of the nature of insurance at that time patients demanded all medical services regardless of cost, even those offering an insignificant health benefit (moral hazard). Second, autonomous providers of the traditional health economy received fee-for-service payments. This creates the incentive for physicians to recommend the extravagant of treatments, even if those treatments are inappropriate to the patients condition (demand inducement)" (University of Canterbury).

In order to address these issues, the concept and practice of managed care have been introduced. The scope of this application is that of creating more efficiency within the health care provision sector.…

Health Care
The problem is that not enough physicians accept patients using Medicare as payment. In essence, many such physicians feel that the Medicare payouts are insufficient either for them to cover their costs, or to turn a reasonable profit on the transaction. obinson (2011) notes that public payer in general pay out at lower rates. The public payers are able to deliver volume to health care providers, and this gives them bargaining power, as one of the most significant payers, that allows them to lower their payouts. The problem for many providers is that servicing these clients essentially means a high-volume, low-margin business model. Not all health care providers can, or wish to, operate with this business model. As in any business, this model requires a high level of discipline, and it requires driving down costs throughout the business. Many physicians find the operating model incompatible with what they…

Economics of Medical Errors
Medical Error Economics

The 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System pulled the curtain back on the dark secret of medical errors (Institute of Medicine, 2000). The best estimates at the time suggested that between 44,000 and 98,000 people were dying each year due to medical errors. A more recent study discovered that the current system of relying on voluntary reporting probably underestimates the annual incidence of adverse events by 90% (Classen et al., 2011). This new finding was based on experts analyzing medical records for anomalies that could potentially represent a serious medical error. The authors of this study concluded that nearly a third of all hospital admissions probably result in an adverse event because of medical errors.

The recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 contains provisions designed to eliminate…

future of health care in the St. Louis area
This paper presents a detailed examination of the future of health care in the St. Louis area. Included in the paper are discussions about economics and population issues as well as changes hat are coming. The writer addresses many economic issues including good and services and resources in the health care industry currently as well as the future projections. There were 12 sources used to complete this paper.

The cost of obtaining health care in the United States has been the topic of tremendous controversy for many years. While some argue that the nation needs to go to socialized medicine similar to the Canadian delivery mode others believe America has the best health care system in the world if only the costs would become more reasonable. The St. Louis MO area is no stranger to rising health care costs. St. Louis…

history evolution health care economics timeline funding, defined terms; Inelasticity, Macroeconomics, supply demand, economics, microeconomics, gross dosmestic product • Include resources. • The paper -- including tables graphs, headings, title page, reference page -- consistent APA formatting guidelines meets -level requirements.
History of health care economics

Throughout the past recent years, the cost of health care has been amounting as a result of numerous social, economic and other categories of pressures, such as the aging of the population, the increasing living standards or the rapid advancement of technology. In this context, the cost of health care in the total gross domestic product is gradually becoming unsustainable for the country.

The economic interest of health care provision was first revealed nearly five decades ago, but at that stage, the analyses were conducted at a microeconomic level. They were taking into consideration limited economic variables and they generated results with a limited…

local hospitals have been criticized for charging greater fees for service to the uninsured than to those covered by insurance. While it is easy to understand the emotional reaction to this policy, it is difficult to provide any sound financial underpinnings for the brouhaha. Indeed, if were the hospitals to act otherwise, they would not only be violating several key, and easy to understand, economic principles. They would also be undermining future health care for these patients and all others, both currently and in the future.
Particularly taken to task for the fee differentials was The Advocate system, which serves "the most patients of any private health care group in the Chicago area, and treats more uninsured patients than any other private Cook County hospital system." (Handschel 2003)

No one has complained recently about a glut of doctors and nurses and other medical staff; on the contrary, the dearth of…

managed care organizations use to reduce unnecessary utilizations? Which ones do you think are more effective?
After food, shelter and clothing, health services are a major human need. With the rapid evolution of the human civilization, and the increasing health awareness among the masses, the demands for health care services are increases. On the parallel end, the health sector today operates on corporate lines and many health care service providers operate their organizations as a for profit organization. These organizations have similar objectives as any other corporate firm, which includes, maximizing profits, increasing market share, eliminating competition or maintaining competitive edge and covering costs. Most of these for profit health care service providers stand out from nonprofits health care service providers due to the fact that they offer services that are otherwise not offered by the nonprofits service providers. Most of these health services are expensive at cost therefore prices…

One of the issues with this program is that it creates a great amount of legacy costs, in that public employees still get full benefits after they retire, but don't have to pay into it,
With the implementation of the new Obama Health Care law the exact impact on Virginia will vary depending upon which course is taken and whether the federal reform proposal tries to cover the expenses or shift these expenses to the states. Experts have assessed the impact of a reform proposal that considerably expands government's role in the health care market by way of providing an extra $1 trillion in federal subsidies over the next ten years and tendering incentives to move present Medicaid recipients into a new federal health insurance program (the Prognosis for National Health Insurance a Virginia Perspective, 2009).

This type of program would:

augment national health care expenditures by an extra 8.9%…

AbstractThis weeks written assignment sought to identify what critical access hospitals (CAH) are, whether or not they are profitable, barriers to their profitability, and possible alternatives to CAHs. CAHs came into existence following the passage of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act (BBA) with the primary aim of increasing access to care in rural communities. Their distinguishing feature is the use of the cost-based Medicare reimbursement system as opposed to the traditional prospective payment system. The cost-based reimbursement system is where Medicare reimburses hospitals based on costs rather than at a standard flat rate. The subsequent sections of this text demonstrate that CAHs are not operating profitably despite running under the cost-based system. Most of them are operating inefficiently, incurring high costs for serving a relatively small number of patients. This text provides possible reasons for the high costs that characterize CAH and recommends the adoption of community outpatient hospitals as…

Market concentration is the concept that allows different distributions of the shares of various companies’ production within a market. In other words, it is a measure of monopolistic phenomena that helps one to determine the extent to which a single firm has control or dominance within a market. Market power is the extension of this phenomenon and describes the ability of a company to raise prices as a result of its monopoly of the market (in a market where competition is fierce, prices are more likely to fall than they are to rise—unless there is collusion among firms). Market concentration can be measured by the concentration ratio, which assesses the combined market share of the top companies within a specific industry; share refers to any relevant indicator, such as employment, sales, etc. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index is one type of market concentration measure and is taken by squaring the percentage of…

Cost analysis methods, 2011, U.S. National Library of Medicine). This will give a picture of the efficacy of the drug, its financial costs, its impact upon society, and impact upon the patient. When a drug is new, data must first be accrued on the drug itself before it can be compared with similar treatments.
What type of economic evaluation should be used when comparing outcomes and costs of two diabetes therapies that affect both the severity of the disease and the survival rate? Why?

A cost-benefit analysis should be used. In this instance, the two therapies do not produce equivalent outcomes. This means a cost-minimization analysis that presumes equivalency cannot be used. The study's designers are not only interested in the costs of the treatment, but also the impact upon patient health, so cost-utility and cost-effectiveness analysis is not appropriate. Only a cost-benefit analysis provides non-quantitative information on the benefits…

Healthcare Economics Evaluation
This report is about a proposed healthcare economics investigation. Some early research has been done and will be described based on what was found and how it was found. The report will conclude with a proposed plan for further economic evaluation on that same topic with a great deal the expected and proper form and function of that research to be described in that section. A conclusion will wrap up the report.

Critical Appraisal of the Evidence

Topic Selected

The author of this report has chosen how to make health care affordable and have the most amount of people possible covered in the United States as this is one of the more omnipresent issues and matters in American society in the modern time. Health care being at the forefront of the American news cycle is nothing new as it is has been a huge part of the…

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…

Health care economics can be understood in terms of a number of different economic concepts. One of the most basic economic concepts is supply and demand. Essentially, supply is how much of something available that there is in a market, and demand is how much that people want. The concept reflects the idea that where there are no constraints, supply and demand will be roughly the same. In the real world, of course, there are always constraints. Demand has a number of drivers, and health care providers need to be aware of these drivers. Older people require more health care, so demand increases as the population ages. Sick people require more health care as well. Thus, when rates of disease or illness increase, that increase demand. As people reach end of life, especially at an advanced age, they become prolific consumers of health care. Thus, while the aging baby boomers…

Economics of Healthcare
The Economics of Health Care

The healthcare in the United States is a system of economics that has been referred to as a Ponzi scheme and most assuredly, the economics of the U.S. healthcare system are unsound at best. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that fails to provide universal access to basic health care and according to the work of Kilchevsky (2004), 'the absence of universal health coverage has been called 'one of the great unsolved problems facing the United States at the onset of the 21st century." (p.1) This work intends to examine the economics of health care in the United States.

The Facts

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports that national health expenditures for 2009 totaled $2.5 trillion, which is stated to be $58,086 per person. (erdine, 2011, p.1) The estimated total for health expenditures in 2008…

097
United States

0.109

0.093808

0.036112

0.068

Utah

0.1071

0.1401

0.035696

0.073

Vermont

0.1326

0.0988

0.040851

0.114

Virgin Islands

NA

NA

NA

Virginia

0.1048

0.0829

0.080009

0.092

Washington

0.1229

0.0669

0.027831

0.068

West Virginia

0.1293

0.0774

0.036499

0.055

Wisconsin

0.0954

0.0357

0.032367

0.097

Wyoming

0.1251

0.1453

0.053867

0.075

Notes

All spending includes state and federal expenditures. Growth figures reflect increases in benefit payments and disproportionate share hospital payments; growth figures do not include administrative costs, accounting adjustments, or costs for the U.S. Territories.

Definitions

Federal Fiscal Year: Unless otherwise noted, years preceded by "FY" on statehealthfacts.org refer to the Federal Fiscal Year, which runs from October 1 through September 30.  for example, FY 2009 refers to the period from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009.

Sources

Urban Institute estimates based on data from CMS (Form 64) (as of 12/21/11).

From this entire chart, the entire increase in expenditure of…

Healthcare spending and GDP
With the renewed comprehensive healthcare system, the obvious challenge that came with it is how to finance it. The huge projections of the financial inputs needed to efficiently run the program portends a challenge to the government and is likely to spin out of control and be unaffordable in the long run after a few decades from now. This is informed by accompanying supplies and services increasing in cost like the essential original drugs that have been noted to have increased in prices among other services within the healthcare. In many countries people are expected to pay for their own health care. Therefore the ability of people to pay for their health care or the affordability of the healthcare has become a policy issue in many countries and especially an issue of urgency. The issue of healthcare spending has been a topic for debate over the…

On the other hand, the industry will most likely insist on the service quality segment rather than on the price transparency. A constant improvement of the services provided within the healthcare facility will not only produce the appropriate competition on the market, but it will also provide the incentives for the other healthcare organizations, thus rising overall quality levels in the market. This will rather change the way hospitals price their services rather than price transparency.
Nevertheless, price transparency will change ridiculous situations in which the client is charged $35,000 to change a battery in a pacemaker. It will drive such prices lower, encouraging price competition.

ibliography

1. A Call for Transparency in Healthcare Cost and Quality. On the Internet at http://blogs.msdn.com/healthblog/archive/2006/05/16/599064.aspx.Last retrieved on June 30, 2007

2. Feld, Stanley. What Is Real Price Transparency? Medicine: Healthcare System. May 2007. On the Internet at http://stanleyfeldmdmace.typepad.com/repairing_the_healthcare_/2007/05/what_is_real_pr.html.Last retrieved on June 30, 2007…

"Studies of the relationship between managed care penetration in the health care market and expenditures for Medicare fee-for-service enrollees have demonstrated the existence of these types of spill over effects" (Bundorf et al., 2004).
Managed care organizations generate these types of spillover effects by increasing competition in the health care market, altering the arrangement of the health care delivery system, and altering physician practice patterns. Studies have found that higher levels of managed care infiltration are linked with lower rates of hospital cost inflation and lower physician fees are consistent with competitive effects. "Other studies demonstrate the impact of managed care on delivery system structure including hospital capacity, hospital admission patterns, the size and composition of the physician workforce and the adoption and use of medical equipment and technologies. More recent evidence has linked market-level managed care activity to the process, but not the outcomes of care" (Bundorf et al.,…

The reason why, is because this is a sign that the quality of care that is being provided in declining. What normally happens is staff members, will often become frustrated with: health care environments that are inefficient and where management has an attitude of indifference. This is problematic, because it can spread through the organization like cancer by: eating away at the fundamentals that made the facility great.
Once this occurs, it will have an impact on: the costs, efficiency and profitability of the hospital. This is the point that this could undermine the reputation of facility and it could have an impact on the brand. When this takes place, it is a sign that many hospitals are falling into a downward spiral of: declining quality of care and increasing costs. At which point, it only becomes a matter of time until: some kind of major restructuring must occur or…

(Menzel, 1990, p. 3) Fisher, Berwick, & Davis alude to the idea of integration in health care, with providers linking as well as creating networks of electronic medical records and other cost improvement tactics.
The United States and other nations over the last twenty or so years, have begun a sweeping change in health care delivery, regarding the manner in which health information is input, stored and accessed. Computer use in the medical industry has greatly increased over the last thirty years the culmination of this is fully networked electronic medical record keeping. (Berner, Detmer, & Simborg, 2005, p. 3) the electronic medical record trend began in the largest institutions first, as hospitals and large care organizations attempted to reduce waste and improve patient care, while the adoption has been much slower among physician's practices and smaller medical institutions. (Hillestad, et al., 2005, pp. 1103-1104) Prior to this time medical…

In fact Congress should pass a bill that gives that prescription drug benefit to Medicare patients.
QUESTION NINE: In the United States, healthcare is so expensive that over 45 million people are without health insurance. It is a broken system, leaving out many people, especially children. Recently the executive branch vetoed a bill that would have provided health insurance to millions of middle and low-income children, indicating a lack of government concern for the well being of the population. Bush said it was too expensive, yet it's not too expensive to continue spending billions on an unpopular war in Iraq. Meanwhile, for the past 45 years, Canada has had a "government-funded, national healthcare system..." based on these five principles, according to www.medhunters.com.One, it is universally available to permanent residents; two, it is comprehensive; three, it is available regardless of income; four, it is "portable within and outside" Canada; and five,…

Health Care Market
In discussing the market for a health care good or service, one must first understand that in speaking of "health care," one is actually speaking of the entire health care industry, along with each of the goods and services that are produced and exchanged within this market. From organ transplant operations and blood donation to therapeutic massages and nursing home activity programs, the span of health care goods and services is both vast and varied. Further, in viewing today's uncertain economy, the market for health care goods and services is one that brings with it many different questions that must be addressed in order for a stakeholder to fully comprehend what decisions need to made in order to turn a profit.

Scarcity of esources

Scarcity of resources within this market significantly influences the decisions that stakeholders are forced to make. With scarcity of resources comes limited action…

Economic Forces and Health Care
Evaluation of Economic Forces and Impact on Health Care

This paper examines the impact of economic forces on the health care industry and health care management. According to Economy atch, the health care industry plays an important part in the country's economy. The health care industry determines the gross domestic product (GDP), exports status, employment, capital investment etc. The industry is likely to be dominated by continued expansion of demands in the market, increasing prices, and increasing awareness among customers, likely triggering a change in the industry for the better (Health Care Industry, 2011).

Industry analysts point to the healthcare industry as the one bright spot in an otherwise sluggish economy. According to the healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), the health care industry is creating new jobs, companies and markets. Job growth as the result of health care demands increased by 65% from 1990 to…

Polls examining public support of the bill and specifically the public healthcare option vary significantly. ith regard to physicians, the New England Journal of Medicine surveyed over six thousand medical doctors and found there was a majority in favor of federally provided public healthcare insurance (Keyhani & Federman). Other polls have suggested an opposition to the public option (Marmor).
The public option would provide an affordable alternative to the current private health insurance options and would provide impetus for competition and positive change. hether "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" will be passed is currently uncertain. hat is certain is that the healthcare and health insurance system is currently not sufficient to provide healthcare support for nearly 48 million uninsured Americans. Alterations need to be made to increase access and affordability for those individuals who desire health insurance.

Conclusion

The healthcare and health insurance system in the United States…

S. healthcare structure do not include the unobserved disparities. This may sound very rudimentary, even silly to point out, but in by understanding that the numbers are actually worse than they appear, and that the rising costs of healthcare services re associated with both what we see and can't see, it is easier to understand how costs rise so quickly.
It is also a sobering fact that what we cannot observe is still out there, existing beyond the scope of the government and social programs designed to help people overcome obstacles to access to healthcare and health insurance. The ethnic group that is most unobserved within the bounds of many of the studies and statistics related to the disparities in the U.S. healthcare industry is non-Mexican Latinos (Bustamante, et. al., 2009). This group represents a major portion of the U.S. population that currently lacks access to healthcare. In understanding this…

Healthcare in the United States: Where We Have Been, Where We Are Going
The current healthcare crisis in America is not one that happened over night. It is one that has been building for more than a quarter century. There was a time in America when healthcare was a stellar institution: research, cures, technological advances, and treatments. The focus of healthcare was maintaining and improving the quality of life. Then, during the early 1980s, managed care became an entity between the physician, the patient, and the healthcare provider of hospital services. It began subtly, but has, today, become one of the most aggressive and successful business ventures of our time; and it has been the unmaking of a once stellar and progressive American institution.

Managed care is a "distinctly American" product (Birenbaum, 1997). It was legislation introduced by the Nixon Administration with the intent to regulate healthcare and to maintain…

arity: Health Care EIT is one of many luxury and acute care investment properties on the market.

Imatability: Given the lack of available credit for starting new property ventures and construction, the company's current facilities do give it an advantage. Financial barriers to industry entry are higher than they were in the past. This can act as a barrier to 'imatiblity' of its business model.

Organization: Health Care EIT has a fairly concentrated organizational structure. While this can be an advantage in terms of assuring consistency of service, it can also result in narrowness of vision, such as (perhaps) a tendency to focus too much on high-end offerings, when seniors may have less financial leverage than in the past.

Sources, rarity, and imatability of cost advantages

Economies of scale may be possible, given the size of Healthcare EIT. Unlike some of its competitors, the company was an early, first mover…

Health Care Situation: Medical Error Due to Doctors' Bad Handwriting
Identify a health care news situation that affects a health care organization such as a hospital, clinic or insurance company.

I have identified the following health care news situation as the topic of my paper: "Poor Handwriting of Doctors and its implied risks for the Patient, Hospital and Medical Malpractice Insurance." Poor handwriting of physicians resulting in poor legibility of entries into patients' medical records carries very dramatic risks for all above-mentioned interest bearers. It can result in severe health danger for the patient and - in extreme situations - even cause a patient's death. Doctors' bad penmanship has long been seen a problem within organized medicine and the patient safety movement. Three American Medical Association (AMA) policies dating back to 1992, urge doctors to "improve the legibility of handwritten orders for medications" and review all orders for accuracy and…

The experiences of seniors within the healthcare delivery system will alter how all Americans view healthcare. The healthcare delivery systems and overall organizational structure in the United States has been slow to adjust but that rest of the world is currently in flux that will migrate into our system. Technological advances in communication have made telehealth and telemedicine vialbel solutions to our outdated healthcare industry orgainzational structre. While these types of advances are only in their infancy, "...there seemed to be broad acceptance that telehealth and telemedicine had provided positive benefits to the worlds healthcare delivery system." (Telehealth Applications) Our technoloically challenged seniors have actually discovered the trend within the healthcare system and telehealth and telemedicine seems to be an advance that will find worldwide support so we as a nation will be reqquired to jump on the bandwagon.

In conclusion, this article review focused on new Healthcare Delivery Systems…

Through the use of statistical modeling the researcher was able to arrive at the validation of their hypothesis.
Assessment of esearch Findings

Based on the results of the statistical modeling used in conjunction with the Household Component of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data set, it was found that tax subsidies do not have a differentially large or targeted effect on the prevalence of high burdens (Selden, 2008). Selden (2008) defines burdens as cash and wage equivalents of employer premium contributions. The results show that tax subsidies assist those above the poverty line more than those below it. The study is concluded prior to explaining why this is so, yet the author contends there are many other factors in addition to tax-based subsidies that have an impact on those below the poverty line being able to afford medical care even with tax-based subsidies.

Analysis

This research study shows that at…

Second, poor health in the individual probably detracts from his or her capacity to contribute to society more directly than the harm to productive society represented by the cost of the individual's healthcare.
Furthermore, the vast majority of American healthcare dollars are spent on individuals in their later years, after their productive lives are already over, rather than on working-age people. Finally, while reducing healthcare costs is necessary for the optimal health of the American economy, it probably relates more directly to private economic matters rather than to consuming national resources that could otherwise be dedicated to technological development in a general sense.

Response to Statement #3: As suggested in Response #2, optimum public health is not necessarily a prerequisite for global competitiveness unless by "health" one means healthy enough to reach productive adulthood. On the other hand, the American population is undoubtedly on the verge of an obesity crisis,…

Healthcare spending by the New York State persistently surpasses its earnings. That difference continues to be expanding and is also anticipated to broaden unless of course there happen to be severe, continuous modifications in spending budget actions. Lieutenant Governor ichard avitch, in "A 5-Year Strategy to Deal with the State of New York's Spending budget Deficit" released during March 2010, approximated this structural disproportion within the state's spending budget to become no less than $13 billion. The structural inequality isn't simply the consequence of the economic downturn that started during 2007, and a commonly strengthening economic climate is not going to get rid of it.
To help the State of New York in providing the solutions and dedication to quality that its residents rely on, structural modifications are needed. The aim of this paper is actually to summarize one particular realignment - solving an outright inequity involving the state as…

On the contrary, a comprehensive medical care solution that tackles the main issues driving up health care costs in America is possible. The main problem experienced by the average American is that health insurance premiums are cost prohibitive for the middle-class, but being uninsured can bankrupt a family forced to deal with even a minor catastrophic illness. Therefore, a national health insurance program has to be part of the solution. However, one cannot overlook the role that unpaid medical bills and exorbitant malpractice premiums also play in the modern healthcare crises. As a result, the solution must include a way to reduce malpractice premiums through tort reform, and a way to reduce the percentage of medical bills that go unpaid. The proposed three-prong approach would tackle all of those issues, without forcing any unwilling person to participate in a nationalized healthcare program.
orks Cited

American Tort Reform Association. "Medical Liability…

Health Care Past, Current, And Future
The health of any nation should be a top priority for leaders and elected political representatives, but in the United States it took several centuries for the nation to begin to come to terms with providing health care for its citizens. This paper covers the gradual implementation of health care services and doctor training facilities in the U.S., and also covers the recent attempt by President Barack Obama to reform a chaotic, poor-functional and expensive health care system. Thesis: It is a scandal of massive proportions that a well-functioning, citizen-friendly universal health care system cannot be instituted in America, the world's most democratic superpower. Until the divisive and toxic political climate can be reformed, there is no chance of major reforms -- or for universal health care coverage -- in these United States.

Past Health Care Services -- Early America

Health care in colonial…

Surgeons in Canada report that, for heart patients, the danger of dying on the waiting list now exceeds the danger of dying on the operating table. Emergency rooms there are so overcrowded that patients awaiting treatment frequently line the corridors. Not only is there a long wait for care, but care is frequently denied to patients who prognosis is poor. In ritain kidney dialysis is generally denied patients over the age of 55. At least 1,500 ritons die each year because of lack of dialysis.
Countries with national health care systems also lag far behind the U.S. In the availability of modern medical technology. In Canada, high-technology medicine is virtually unavailable. In addition to being biased against new medical technologies, national health care systems generally discriminate against nontraditional practitioners, such as naturopaths and chiropractors.

It is true that Canada spends only about nine percent of its GDP on health care,…

Healthcare Inequalities
Are healthcare inequalities UK

Defining Health Inequality

The term healthcare disparity or healthcare differences have been defined in a number of ways. Healthcare inequality can be defined as the difference of the health levels of any tow comparable demographic groups within a certain country or a region even when proper healthcare facilities are available. The inclusive incidences include higher rates of mortality as well as morbidity within the people who belong to lower occupational classes and are poorer. These rates are higher as compared to the mortality rates in the people who belong to better occupational classes being richer and more privileged. Second important aspect that has been highlighted in the definitions of healthcare inequality includes increased rates of occurrence of mental healthcare-based issues in people from poor classes.

A number of countries have been highlighted with healthcare inequalities including Canada and UK. Since 1980, the documentation of…

Healthcare Legislative Bill
The expanded and improved Medicare for all Acts

The Expanded and mproved Medicare for All Act was introduced to the House of Representatives in 2009 and seeks to lobby for the implementation of a common single-payer health care system throughout the United States o0f America. The bill if enacted would require that all medical care costs be paid for automatically by the government instead of private insurances for the same. The move will significantly alter the role of private insurance companies as merely offering supplemental coverage especially when the kind of medical care sought is not all that essential (McCormick, 2009).

With the Expanded and mproved Medicare for All Bill, the country's national system will be paid for through taxes and the monies that will replace the regular insurance premiums. Proponents of the bill argue that by eliminating the need for private insurance companies in the national…

Not only is there cost competition, but the real cost of a lot of services have actually gone down over the past fifteen years despite a tremendous increase in demand and enormous technological change. For example, the cost of conventional LASIK vision correction surgery has dropped radically, even as the procedure has become more technically superior (Herrick and Goodman, 2007).
Many experts have suggested that the solution to the health care system's troubles is to have a more market-based approach. Consumer-directed health plans are at the heart of this idea. If people are made to spend more of their own money, they'll be more practical users of care and look for better value at lower prices. This is how other industries work, and people don't complain much about them. It has been asked why health care should be any different. People think that the government should get out of the…

(Wolf, 2008) When you put all of these different elements together, it means that denying health care services to undocumented workers and their families will cause their underlying levels of health to slowly deteriorate. If something serious does occur, these people will more than likely be forced to fend for themselves.
Conducting research in these two areas would be beneficial in influencing health care policy / outcome by: highlighting the overall human cost of the problem on the industry and society. Where, the act of denying them access to health care and the lingering effects could be considered a human rights issue. As a result, the research that would be conducted would be beneficial, in highlighting the overall harsh conditions that these families are forced to endure. Once you present the situation in this light, this will shift the debate from one of a cost issue to being about: basic…

Also, as care is prioritized, those individuals deemed to be in a less urgent need of care are given a lower priority, which results in a wait list. Finally, as physicians are compensated on the same level of salary, fewer people may be attracted to the profession for its financial rewards. In a public system, patients shop around less for providers because most providers charge the same fees. ithin a public system there is less 'siphoning' of middle-income people to higher-cost physicians with short waiting lists.
Visit: http://www.csc-surgery.com/contact.php.hatexactly is this hospital? hat would your policy response be?

According to its website, the Cambie Surgery Centre is a private healthcare clinic. The site notes that the "BC provincial government looks to private health care facilities like the Cambie Surgery Centre to help ease the long public wait lists." The hospital is a paying hospital that uses sophisticated technology to perform its…

Healthcare Case Study Schuylkill County, PA
County Overview - Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania is located in the heart of the anthracite Coal region of Pennsylvania where the Schuylkill iver originates. Pottsville is the county seat, and the county showed a population of just under 150,000 as of 2010 with a density of 190 persons per square mile. The total area of the county is 782 square miles, almost all land, less than 1/2 a per cent water. The county's history, likely due to large coal deposits, focused on the railroad and industrialization (Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce, 2011).

The county experienced the high point of its population during the 1920s and 1930s, and has been losing people ever since, most between 1950 and 1970, with about a 1-2% population loss since the turn of the century. This is likely due to the lack of appropriate jobs and opportunities within the county. Schuylkill…

Health Care ight or Privilege
Health Care ight Privilege

Whether health care is a right or a privilege is one of the most intensely debated social questions of the modern era, but phrasing it in this binary way of one or the other masks a deeper problem that is far more complex. The specific issue at hand is the rationing of scarce medical resources. If there were unlimited resources where everyone could achieve the maximum health all the time, we would not have to ask the question, but this is clearly not the case. Glannon argues this requires a theory of "distributive justice" (2005, p. 144), and outlines the four main theories that have emerged from the modern discussion, which are Utilitarian / consequentialist, Libertarian, Communitarian and Egalitarian.

Utilitarian, consequentialist theory is often invoked toward a solution of who deserves health care when there is not enough for everyone, and…

Healthcare
Hadley, Jack, John Holahan, Teresa Coughlin, & Dawn Miller. (2008). Covering the uninsured in 2008: Current costs, sources of payment, and incremental costs. Health Affairs, Web

Exclusive, 399-415.

According to Hadley (et al. 2008), "the cost of expanding coverage to the 16% of Americans who are uninsured would add 5% to national health spending" (Hadley 2008: 399). This cost is considerable, yet the cost of allowing the status quo to remain is far greater. In the article, "Covering the uninsured" the authors use quantitative analysis to determine how much care uninsured persons currently receive, how much of it remains uncompensated because of an inability to pay, and how much more coverage would be consumed if all Americans did have health insurance (Hadley 2008: 399). Their data encompasses interviews of 102,000 people who were part of the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys; data from government budgets and health care providers; surveys…

The American Public Health Association (APHA) is founded. This organization is concerned with the social and economic aspects of health problems.

The National Quarantine Act is signed into law. This legislation is designed to prevent entry into the country of persons with communicable diseases.

1899 the National Hospital Superintendent's Association is created. It later becomes the American Hospital Association.

Patel & ushefsky, 1995, p. xvii)

The seeds of health care legislation and centralization began before 1875 but began to take hold as the most accepted manner in which to ensure safe and scientifically founded health care for many and to begin to ensure that diseases that commonly plagued a newly urbanized and highly stressful environment of mass immigration could be dealt with, in a more centralized and practical manner. Founded earlier in 1847, the American Medical Association began to have a concrete and centralized role in the health care decisions…

A recent article touted the 6.1% growth of spending on medical care in 2007.
The same article cautioned however that, "most experts know that no matter what the numbers say, there is still a great deal of work ahead to reform a healthcare system that is still fundamentally broken -- and is facing one of the worst economic recessions in decades" (Lubell, 2009, pg. 6).

Government and industry officials have been working to reform the industry for more than a decade yet the problem seems to be getting worse rather than better. More and more individuals are finding that insurance takes too much of their income and are forced therefore to forego that expense. Government is leery of committing to the cost of such expense, and industry is reluctant to offer expanded coverage without the backing of the federal government. As the interested parties do the two-step the problem becomes…

It is my belief therefore, as a very wealthy family it is the obligation of the group to help those less fortunate. In this instance, health care (Kim, 1976).
There is an opportunity cost associated against the population for not implemented this policy on a nationwide basis. For one, the money allocated towards health care will help prevent illness. Illness associated with absenteeism, tardiness, and lack of productivity can cost society billions of dollars. Various studies have been conducted to measure productivity loss in the workplace due to worker illness. esults show that not only does the business suffer when a worker is absent from the job, but productivity loss can also occur when a worker is suffering from illness and attempting to work. The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine also cites idle assets and benefits paid to absent workers as additional costs an employer must deal with…

Health Care
A target market is defined as recognizable segments that make up the market, and the target market consists of the groups the organization wants to focus on (Swayne, Duncan & Ginter, 2008). There are a number of ways that a target market can be understood. The main breakdowns in health care are geography, demographics, payer and specialty (Gandolf, 2010).

Geography is perhaps the simplest one. It reflects the service radius that the hospital wants to serve. In Emanuel's case, does it want to serve mainly Turlock, or does it consider its playing field to be broader. Is it competing for customers in the major towns in the area? In some respects, the other competitors in the market are defining for Emanuel what its geographic target market is, since they are winning customers away from Emanuel.

Demographics reflects the ways of describing the people in your target market. The…

It appears the dangers of a commercialized healthcare system have demonstrated that this beastly practice of profiting off the sick is not good for the society at many different level it contains.
Healthcare discussions of this matter do not belong in a committee that is dedicated to commercial purposes. Medicare and Medicaid were successful in the past in spite of the many governmental forces that played a role in their existence, but like all things these are old and obsolete ways of dealing with this current crisis of confusion.

A philosophical mindset, absent from this meeting, that included individual responsibility and preventative efforts to maintain health should be emphasized from leaders. Safety can never be guaranteed, neither can good health, so to offer such promises of universal coverage is over-idealistic if not criminally negligent. Like the answer to most problems, the solutions are local and come from within communities and…

As a result, millions of Americans remain unable to bear the heavy financial toll of medical expenses. Indeed, the problem of a lack of insurance for many is related to the problem of the cost of healthcare. So confirms the article by Consumer Reports (CR) (2008), which finds that "health-insurance premiums have grown faster than inflation or workers' earnings over the past decade, in parallel with the equally rapid rise in overall health costs. Industry spending on administrative and marketing costs, plus profits, consumes 12% of private-insurance premiums." (CR, 1) This reiterates the case that the undue imposition of costs by the healthcare industry -- a reflection of a free-market industry with little to no regulatory oversight -- has negatively impacted the accessibility and quality of healthcare for many of the poorest users.
Moreover, these users are most vulnerable to the long-term economic damages provoked by unexpected healthcare costs. So…

Health Staff
the Allied health care staffing agency is a staffing agency that focuses on the niche of the nursing jobs within the healthcare industry in Chicago

The Allied healthcare staffing agency works to recruit registered nurses belonging to all medical Specialties, Practical Nurses that are licensed also called LPNs, Nursing Assistants that are certified also called CNAs and Specialists from the allied health sciences. These professionals would be hired both from the area of the metro city as well as the suburbs and placed within the hospitals, the neighborhood medical centers, Adult care facilities, clinics, and rehabilitation centers.

The mission of the Allied Healthcare Staffing Agency is to provide the best opportunities of employment both to its collaborators which are the local healthcare organizations as well as serving the entire nursing community to provide amply amount of job opportunities to choose from in a time when the turnover of…

Health Policies Medicare
hen everyone in our country finally starts to reach the age of 65 years of age or older, then every person will become eligible for Medicare. It is clear that there are some elderly that are having minimum health concerns while others recurrently are dealing with medical issues for which they will have to seek out treatment by the doctor. However, research is starting to display that there are at least five top conditions that are enhancing on medical and drug spending. It is obvious that Heart disease circumstances are the number one medical issue that the those that are considered elderly are facing and that is becoming very costly to them. Most are unaware that the second one is the disease cancer and it could be internal or external for various elderly patients. Other issues such as joint ailments a lot of the times can cost…

(Findlay, 2001, 90 -- 119) (McLeod, 2003, pp. 895 -- 908)
What is the possibility of bias entering the study? If the study is susceptible to bias, state and explain the type of bias that may enter the study and what steps can be incorporated to minimize the entry of bias.

The possibility for bias in the study is low. The reason why, is because researchers will have limited access to the patients they are seeing (through: the use of anonymous surveys). This will dramatically reduce the possibilities of bias existing. (Findlay, 2001, 90 -- 119) (McLeod, 2003, pp. 895 -- 908)

ased on your hypothesis/proposal, how will the proposed generated results help to develop an effective health policy for the target population of your chosen topic?

The proposal will help to develop an effective health policy. This is accomplished by: providing specific insights about how the increasing utilization of…

Health Care -- Lean Philosophy on Cost Reduction and Quality Improvement
Lean Philosophy is initially traced back to Henry Ford's innovative assembly line, revolutionizing manufacturing while failing to provide true variety. Building on Ford's concepts Toyota management established a Lean Philosophy in the 1930's and 1940's that focused on production flow and waste elimination, resulting in rapid, low cost and high quality processes, along with simpler and more accurate management. These concepts were further elucidated by authors including James omack, who established the Lean Enterprise Institute in 1997.

The essential elements of Lean Philosophy are 5 principles including: defining the value sought by the customer; specifying the value stream of the product satisfying that value while challenging wasted steps; making a continuous flow of product through refined steps; creating "pull" (essentially meaning "customer demand/expectation") from step-to-step for continuous flow wherever possible; continually improve and refine the process to cut the…

Expenditures on health care has been mounting faster than the economy for many years, representing a challenge not only for the government's health insurance programs, but also for the private sector. As health care expenditures consume a larger share of the nation's economic output, Virginians along with all Americans will be faced with progressively harder choices to make (the Long-Term Outlook for Health Care Spending, n.d.).
orks Cited

"About Your Benefits." 2010, viewed 14 February 2011, from

"Benefits Descriptions." 2010, viewed 14 February 2011, from

"Current Inflation Rates: 2000-2011." 2010, viewed 14 February 2011, from

"Eligibility, Enrollment and Plan Choices." 2010, viewed 14 February 2011, from

"Five health insurers raise rates in Virginia."2010, viewed 14 February 2011, from

Martin, Keith L. 2010, "Virginia passes budget cutting Medicaid, other health services," viewed

14 February 2011, from < http://ifawebnews.com/2010/03/15/virginia-passes-budget-cutting-medicaid-other-health-services/>

"Monthly Premiums for Non-Medicare Eligible Retiree Group." 2010, viewed 14 February 2011,



Martin,…

Nursing homes, residential care facilities, and home health care will be core issues on the agenda for representatives in that area. In areas with substantial populations of non-native English speakers, a nurse might need to lobby for a greater wealth of bilingual health care services.
Community nurses are also becoming increasingly aware of the issues related to health care access including the growing number of underinsured or underinsured citizens. When communicating with lawmakers who have little first-hand knowledge of what health care costs are like or how health care integrates with the community, nurses need to focus on the issues that legislators understand. Policies related to access to health care can be framed in ways that achieve direct and immediate results. For example, a nurse might propose a strong network of community health and outreach centers that provide information on preventative care in multiple languages. Similarly, a nurse might work…