Health Economic Research Paper

From an economic perspective, there is an increased recognition of the benefits of society from the promotion of health and the prevention of disease, disability, and premature death. In addition, financing health care has been focused on medicine and some progress has been made towards health promotion and disease prevention; however, the progress in this direction is very slow due to social and institutional beliefs and values.

The health care system has had a negative impact on both insured families and uninsured families. Many believe that health care reforms are unnecessary and hence should not be applied. Reducing health care costs will not necessarily benefit the economy. After spending decades trying to reduce health care costs, some commentators and policymakers now argue that health care costs should be increased to stimulate the economy. At the crux of the argument are the notions that increasing spending on health care will create jobs that can be filled by those losing jobs in other areas of the economy and that implementing long-proposed reforms will reduce health care costs. Nay-Sayers argue that health care reforms will only prevent economic growth, and that increasing health care costs in order to reduce them is an inconsistent belief. These two arguments are fundamentally at odds with each other. Advocates claim simultaneously that it would stimulate economic growth to spend more money on these reforms, and that the reforms would reduce total health care costs.

Economists use certain concepts to help better understand health care services and the determining factor in health care funding.

When contemplating health care policy changes, several economic issues in health care must be considered. These include the financial issues affecting the health sector and have an impact on health policies. Policy makers face unending challenges due to the health sector revenues that are always rising. Another challenge is decreased funding and failure of the health insurance services.

The CMS states “In 2014, national health spending is projected to increase to 7.4 percent, or 2.1 percentage-points faster than in the absence of reform as the major coverage expansions from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are expected to result in 22 million fewer uninsured people” ("Public Health Care Needs," 2012, p. 1). The complexity of health care spending and funding is a hot topic in the federal government, the media, and consumer. In this students experience many patients are aware that changes are coming, but the patients are very opinionated by their like or dislike of the President of the United States. This student has found through daily

In recent years, health care has been a huge topic in public debates, legislations, and even in deciding who will become the next president. There have been many acts, legislations, and debates on what the country has to do in regards to health care. According to University of Phoenix Read Me First HCS/235 (n.d.), “How health care is financed influences access to health care, how health care is delivered, the quality of health care provided, and its cost”.

Health service in most cases is crafted by the economic and social values systems of each respective country. It contributes to a country’s economic GDP (gross domestic product), by creating various areas of employment opportunities, examples including and not limited to the delivery of medical services, research and development of new drugs for the treatment of various ailments, insurance services to name a few (Barton, 2010, p. 3).

The effects of health care on the economy are double-edged; they are both positive and negative, but regarding them as either of the two depends on the angle at which they are assessed. From the positive point of view, healthcare improves people’s health, making them economically active (Eneji, Juliana and Onabe 259). Being economically active, people engage in production, which boosts their economic position as well as the economic conditions of their country. Healthcare is also a major source of employment, which means that it creates revenue to a large number of people. With revenue, employees hired in healthcare facilities can grow themselves economically (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation 4). In addition, spending

Following completion of these degrees, my goal is to work for a National or Global Health agency to gather and analyze data to bring positive change, nationally and globally. I hope to address the world’s most pressing health issues by conducting research grounded in vigorous and innovative analytical methods. I have had various data analysis experiences at multiple levels that demonstrate I have the capacity to apply innovative analytical techniques. Most notable is the competitive survey methodology fellowship I acquired at the National Center for Education Statistics. In this fellowship, I worked with big data to measure the adequacy of the world’s education systems (e.g. PISA,

Health economics is the discipline of economics applied to the topic of health care. Broadly defined, economics concerns how society allocates its

This paper will discuss the use of econometrics in the healthcare setting. Use of statistics and analysis may have a role in decision making in future hospital spending.

It is very much evident that the field of pharmacy has been expanding its dimensions at a tremendous rate and contributing a major role in health care. However, my focus has primarily been in understanding the economic aspects of healthcare complementing the safety and efficacy of the therapy. Pharmacoeconomics has been one of the intriguing modules ever since I started learning about it. As a student of a developing country, I perceived several concerns in the healthcare sector esp. in relation to health care cost, which indeed prompted me to develop passion on the subject of Pharmacoeconomics. My long-term objective is to see myself as a significant contributor of health care domain through Pharmacoeconomics research. Hence, I am interested in learning and excelling in this field through the graduate program in pharmacoeconomics & health outcome research at your university.

Changing factors such as aging populations and new technologies becoming available are increasing expectations from people throughout the world, and decision makers must make rational choices to maximise benefits to population health whilst working with limited resources. Yothasamut et al (2009) summarise this by observing that "health care resources in every setting are always constrained, while unlimited demand is observed". The 'best' choices in the context of economics are the ones which maximise utility (individual satisfaction through consumption of goods) and welfare, the sum utility experienced by all individuals in society. Decision makers often have to seek satisfactory rather than optimal solutions, also known as working with 'bounded rationality' (Simon 1957 in Williams et al 2008), as it is important to pursue both efficiency and equity in the funding of health care. Therefore, it may be unsuitable to fund the most cost effective option if it sacrifices the equal distribution of benefits. Research in health economics can take a normative or positive approach and this reflects the balance needed between cost control and equity when making economic decisions. Positive economic research and analysis is concerned with 'how things are' and seeks to explain economic phenomena, whilst normative economic research and analysis is concerned with 'how things ought to be' and relies on value

The current research programs in the Centre for Health Economic at Monash University took my interest as the university is providing a wide range of research areas in the field of Health Economics. Furthermore, the researches are mainly centred on economic evaluation, health outcomes and performance in the health care system which help me to get a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of micro econometrics and other statistical methods, while focusing on Health Economics. In addition to my postgraduate experience, during my volunteer work at King Edward Memorial Hospital and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Western Australia, I have acquired experience in designing questionnaires in relation to ongoing health programs and analysed the surveys’ data focusing on pre-and post-health outcomes. All these academic and extracurricular activities enhance my interest in Health Economics and therefore I am willing to go for further studies to have a sound knowledge of in this specific field.

As one leader in the free world more money is spent on health care in this country than any other industrialized nation. The major expense to the health care system is managing chronic diseases and illnesses. Each year trillions of dollars are spent on health care, which continues to be an economic burden in this country. The impact on the economy can be attributed to increasing health care costs, declining health of Americans, and decrease productivity among workers (Preventive Medicine, 2009). The goal of this paper is to discuss the various economic tools and concepts such as supply and demand curves and price elasticity, and marginal analysis in the managed health industry.