Inelastic Demand In Health Care

“When we debate health care policy, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills so high? (Sultz & Young 336)”. It’s no surprise for many Americas today to realize that the cost of healthcare and the cost of having insurance is on the rise. Many people wonder why something stressed as important for every individual to have access to, is so expensive and inaccessible for many. So, why is that something that should be accessible for anyone, is lacking this quality? Many people today lack health insurance coverage, because of the high cost for private insurance or because of the loss of employer-based health coverage. Many Americans during the last decade, especially during the years of economic recession and contraction no longer have access to job-based health care insurance coverage (Sultz & Young 290). As a reaction to the many uninsured individuals and to attempt to control short and long term costs, the government had implemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Living in the United States, there is one essential thing you need to have, which is health insurance. Health insurance is a type of insurance that can covers cost of medical and surgical expenses when you need them. Without health insurance, the cost of one single surgery would be a enormous number. But in the United States, there are about 46 million americans are uninsured. To them, the cost of health insurance is too high. In America, the average cost of health insurance per month is about $328 and the minimum wage per hour in here is $7.25(where cite from?). From here, we can conclude that it is too expensive for those people to get sick. So, is the health insurance cost unjustifiably high? The answer is the highly developed technology, waste of health care budget and the free competitor in the health insurance market, caused health insurance’s price to remain so high.

The cost of health insurance has changed drastically over the years as it has become more expensive. Depending on personal characteristic, the cost of health insurance may vary. For instance, as individuals grow older the more expensive it becomes. In this case, health insurance is more costly because “older individuals require more health care” therefore “the cost of providing health care is rising” (Madura &Atlantic, 2012). Not only does this affect the high cost of health insurance, but the number of individuals uninsured. As stated by Madura and Atlantic (2012), “about one in every five workers is uninsured” and has increased since then because health insurance has become unaffordable. As a result, individuals tend to seek health care elsewhere as they can no longer

“The amount people pay for health insurance increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while income for the same period of time only increased 3 percent.” (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The rising cost of healthcare is a huge problem in America today. In this paper I will analyze the different issues and causes for the increase in cost.

The complexity of health care could take the rates on a massive trajectory that does not favor the people covered. Therefore, the financial protection that the levels of health insurance covers, help to guard against the risks related to the unexpected costs of health care. The source of coverage could still have an impact by the insurance coverage and financing alternatives that one has access to; Conversely, private insurance, social insurance, and the national health services are the types of healthcare systems by funding and provision. As we look to health care coverage and the reform of Obamacare, I’ll analyze the impact of the uninsured in the industry and look for a resolution to improve the

A major contributor to the rise of healthcare cost is that heath spending for individuals is primarily funded by third-parties. Because consumers of healthcare share little of the financial burden of the cost of the care they receive, patients and physicians are incentivized to utilize healthcare at a higher rate than they would if cost was a larger factor. The United States healthcare systems is based on a capitalist system but it operates in an imperfect marketplace that is no competitive. The current marketplace is not highly regulated as there is not a national health care program for all Americans which allow prices to be regulated and controlled effectively by a single regulating body. In this imperfect

Regulations that prevent insurance companies from participating in interstate commerce have caused competition to grow stagnant in the United States. This lack of competition has allowed the adoption of wasteful procedures by healthcare providers, which in turn passes the increased expenses back to the insurance companies. Therein, insurance costs increase, crippling consumer’s cash flow and quality of life. While healthcare costs continue to rise, people must scrutinize the current healthcare system.

Developments in new technologies, new treatments, and new drugs may improve the ability of the NHS as the supplier, but at the same time it encourages demand to level that requires significantly exceeds supply. This will create a long waiting list and will lead to a shortage of beds in the hospital. NHS privatization will cause prices to rise to reflect the true cost of supply. However, rising costs have forced a re-think on funding.

Hospital financing is done regionally by implementing an increase on historical spending. The Minister of Information has implied that this system is inefficient and actually rewards hospital inefficiency with larger budgets. This will severely weaken the healthcare system in the long run.

Under a free-market system, health care is characterized in three ways – cost, access, and quality. In the United States, a mixed economic system that favors a free market system, health care is characterized as high cost, low access, and high quality. As such, these dichotomies pose an imperfect, inefficient scenario – the high cost and low access of health care lead people to not purchase insurance, while the high quality of health care drives people to still receive health care services. As a result, millions of Americans are currently uninsured, yet still utilizing various health care services, and are unable to pay their medical bills. This poses yet another conundrum - how can uninsured individuals receive medical care without paying for it? More importantly, who ends up paying for these services? Having recognized this gap between receiving medical care and paying for medical care,

Health care in the U.S is still too expensive for many families. So what does the system look like right now and how does health care systems look in other countries? This paper will explore these questions and delineate and differentiate these systems in this paper. The market-based health insurance system in the

With this issue, it has come to the point where employers are putting a cease and lowering the benefits of health care that they would usually provide to their employees. In 2012 — the most recent year we have data for — the United States spent $2.8 trillion on health care (Vox Health Care Spending). Hence, these numbers are quite high when we compare the numbers to other industrialized nations such as Taiwan and Switzerland. With such high costs of health care in the United States, it is important to note that the escalating health care costs can possibly push up inflation and thus make goods and services less competitive in the global markets in the long run due to the high health care costs that might be displayed in the higher product

This method of calculating costs could be beneficial or not depending on the organization and its size. In a healthcare setting, any healthcare institution is seen as delivering quality care and therefore most decisions regarding choice of the institution come down to the pricing. In order to compete for patients, the healthcare institution must bring its price down to the absolute margin. This will over time affect the institution badly as it will leave the institution without funds to replace the capital equipment. This can eventually lead to closing down of the financially weaker

As a health administrator, my priority is to make sure the patient get a good health care which is the value for the money and affordable to all the citizens from all walks of life. Therefore, bargaining for the prices is a welcome initiative since the hospitals is not a profit making institution. Furthermore, all the human beings do not have the same income. This makes it rational to negotiate for prices to make sure the system cover all the patients. Thus, as administrator my first reaction is to listen to the suggestions given by the patients and other organization to get their point of view as to why they think the prices should come down.

There is a spacious room for lemon in insurance field. The price for health insurance is not fixed, it varies based on the level of the need an applicant may require for the insurance. As in the case of elderly people over the age 65, it is well known that it is very difficult for them to get health insurance because of its high price as they certainly will need it more than other applicants. On the other hand, employees working in companies are offered health insurance as a part of the companies’ policies and regulations. This actually create more room for lemon in the insurance field and less chance for old people who need it more. This ended up with adverse selection by the insurance companies. (A.Akerlof, Aug