Health Care Issues Essay

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Greenwald identifies several factors that are resulting in escalating health care costs in the U.S. One of these is the values and expectations of the American people. The consumer (patients) have an expectation that they will receive a very high standard of care, and there is reason to believe that these expectations are increasing over time. This results in a demand driver for health care companies to constantly invest in research and development. There are other factors as well. Greenwald cites consumption by the disadvantaged and immigrants -- I'm not sure I agree with that. His argument is that the government is a payer, and many are using emergency care because they lack insurance, but this is logical fallacy. A lack of insurance is the reason these users are expensive -- it is not their existence that is the problem. Greenwald also notes that the rise in the use of insurance has increased costs, as insurance companies take profits and do not necessarily bargain with providers are toughly as government payers. An aging population is also cited. The aging population is definitely a major factor, since older people, especially those in the final years and with chronic conditions, are among the most expensive people to care for. Many are on Medicaid, so have access to care, and the greater the percentage of elderly in a population, the higher the per capita expenditure on health care will be.

There are many health challenges. Greenwald identifies the following. The uninsured are a problem that is identified.

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Even with the Affordable Care Act, there remains a large portion of Americans who are without health insurance. Medicare and other entitlements (Medicaid, etc.) are an interesting issue, because of how they affect the payer dynamic. In particular, there are issues with respect to Medicare driving down payments to providers, while not being means tested. Equality of care is another issue Greenwald identifies with the health care system. Americans want a high standard, yet the uninsured receive very poor care, and many others receive basically second-tier care, while at the high end some people receive what is basically the best care in the world. These discrepancies are a major challenge for the U.S. health care system.

There are several insurance concepts that affect the health care system. These include small claims, where insurance is bogged down by a large number of relatively small claims, reducing efficiency. Risk is a key insurance concept, and incalculable risk is an important concept because it is more difficult to calculate health care risk than other forms of risk in other insurance businesses. A third insurance concept is unfavorable risk pools. A risk pool is a set of individuals who contribute premiums to offset claims. An unfavorable risk pool is one where the claims are expected to be larger than the premiums.

Unit 4 LC2

1. Research serves a number of purposes are to confirm ideas, to develop new ideas and to collate established knowledge.

2. The three main methodologies for research are quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods (which is….....

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