Major Factors Affecting Demand For Any Market

A healthcare disparity is a limitation of healthcare availability, usually among a certain racial or socioeconomic demographic (Black, 2013). However, there are disparities that don’t have a specific demographic and affect the entirety of the United States, which are potentially most detrimental to the overall health of our country. One of those disparities is health literacy, or the exchange of complex information from the healthcare provider to the patient or client (Black, 2013). The lack of health literacy in America poses as a problem, especially with the chronically ill. Without proper knowledge of how to treat their illness and what to do when the disease process worsens or ameliorates can potentially cause millions of unnecessary hospitalizations,

Individuals with low health literacy also face the problem of not having acquired health insurance due to the confusion of most healthcare plans provided. Without health insurance, the out of pocket price for medical expenses becomes a burden for many individuals to digest (Koh et al., 2012). With the large out of pocket price many individuals alienate healthcare facilities altogether.

Only 15-40 % of the population in the U.S. are health literate (Kirk et al. 2012) and 14% of the total adult population have below basic/functional literacy. Of the total adult population with basic health literacy skills, 14 % of the population are men and 16% of the population are

Background: Health literacy presents a huge challenge in the delivery of effective healthcare and quality outcomes. We evaluated association between low health literacy and healthcare utilization.

Medical Doctor, Barry Weiss, identify multiple populations that have low levels of health literacy. Those populations include: the elderly, minority groups, people with limited formal education, immigrants, poor and homeless persons, prisoners and military recruits. Those that are enlisted members of the armed forces have been shown to have low levels of literacy, affecting

The financial consequences of low health literacy will affect society as a whole. Our health insurance will rise. The educational institute will be affect as they rewrite the health information in a simplistic format to make it possible for someone with low health literacy to understand the material. This is costly in printing but, also in educating the health professionals. According to the article, the cost of low health literacy annually per capita is $3,90 that is equivalent to the costs of health coverage for more than 60 million Americans. Personally, cost is not the only factor that affects society there is the problem of health risk to the public. Low health literacy patients wait until they are gravely ill to seek medical treatment

Health literacy is the ability to read, comprehend, and utilize healthcare information in order to make health related decisions based on the individual 's interpretation of this information (Eadie, 2014). This includes the individual 's ability to "perform Internet searches, reading health prevention pamphlets, measuring medication doses, and understanding and complying with verbal or written health care instructions" (Eadie, 2014, p. 10). These barriers significantly affect patient safety and require intervention from health care professionals. As we have learned in our previous theory courses, many individuals experience some form of limited health literacy; however, "the Institute of Medicine reports that 90 million American adults lack basic health literacy" (as cited in Eadie, 2014, p.10).

Healthcare literacy is a major challenge in America today, but many Americans do not know what healthcare literacy entails. The World Health Organization (2009) defines health literacy “the degree to which people are able to access, understand, appraise, and communicate information to engage with the demands of different health contexts to promote and maintain good health across the life-course.”

“It was estimated in 1998 that between $35-73 billion was wasted in prolonged hospital stays and frequent doctors visits related to low health literacy” (Ickes, MEd & Cottrell, DEd, CHES, 2010, p. 492). With all of the previously mentioned problems of poor health literacy, individuals who fall into these categories are also more likely to die at an early age.

Health literacy is based on one’s ability to acquire and process information so that the best possible health care choices can be made (Altin, Finke, Kautz-Freimuth, & Stock, 2014). Having adequate levels of health literacy is imperative to preventing disease/illness and maintaining optimal health. Current research documents the importance health literacy has on making informed health care decisions, allowing patient self-efficacy, and facilitating health and wellness (Aboumatar, Carson, Beach, Roter, & Cooper, 2013). When health literacy levels are low, individuals have trouble understanding the consequences of risky health behavior, tend to get sick more often, have more chronic disease, are more likely to be uninsured, and are less

The healthcare market works quite differently, however, because there is a separation between the consumer and the producer as well as the payer that renders traditional market forces virtually obsolete (Krugman, 2009). Large medical expenses such as those for even basic surgeries are things most people cannot pay for out-of-pocket as they can for other goods and services, and that is why health insurance is used to spread costs out more evenly and provide access to healthcare that could normally not be afforded (Krugman, 2009). This means that the insurer is the payer, in large part,

This is consistent with Winan and Kasubski (2011) vision of the global shifting towards consumerism and Cohen, Grote, Pietrazek, and Laflamme (2010) end of managed care era. Nevertheless, since patients are not familiar with the process yet, accepting the change will be slow and benefits might not be directly seen at the soon future (Cohen, Grote, Pietrazek, & Laflamme, 2010), In this regards, Thompson and Culter (2010) recommend integrating health initiatives into business strategy, offer attractive incentives, introduce group decision-making models, facilitate new technology usage, and development of new strategies that consider short and long term goals.

Many risk factors for chronic diseases are now more common among the less educated than the better educated, (Scott, 2005). Patients have problems obtaining, processing, and understanding basic health information because they do not understand the jargon used by doctors. Patients with a poor understanding of good health may not know when it is necessary to seek care for certain symptoms. While problems with health literacy are not limited to minority groups, the problem can be more pronounced in these groups than in whites due to socioeconomic and educational factors.

The free-market environment provides the ability for people to exercise their preferences for different goods and services. It helps to motivate firms to adjust their supply dependent on the consumer preferences through allocative efficiency and firms to become as efficient as possible to survive the competitive market. Firms are encouraged to compete for the highest quality of care creating incentives into research and development for better and new treatments. Therefore, greater investment into capital goods to help boost the productive proficiencies in supplying high- quality healthcare for consumers. However, there are also noticeable flaws with a free-market system through the existence of imperfect information that consumers could choose decisions dependent on the authority of a person and not the appropriate choices. Healthcare is a personal choice and does not rely on the experience of others, therefore there is a risk of asymmetric information that consumers cannot judge the quality of their purchases and select undesirable choices. Some may argue that price signals could be implemented in a way to encourage consumers to evaluate their purchases and weigh up the benefits versus costs, but we must remember healthcare is neither a commodity or a luxury service. Over-consumption of healthcare is unwanted but under-consumption is a negative risk too that if individuals become solely focused on their needs; the positive

Insurance Companies - Consumers of health care product or service have little knowledge of the total cost of the treatment provided. The reason being, insurance companies, often cover the treatment, either completely or in part. The demand and supply law also apply to the healthcare industry. When the price of healthcare rises, patients require less of the service. However, there must be some caution. Why, because the bottom line is, the cost