Question

(8) Suppose a health insurance policy paid for 80% of all treatment received by the patient. What do you think would happen to patient choices about quality of care compared to the same person but with no health insurance? (5 Poin ts) (9) Describe at least five key issues facing policymakers with regard to healthcare spending.

Answer 1

8.

If there is no health insurance, quality of care should drop.

Healthcare provider always relies upon insurance; if a patient doesn’t have insurance policy there is always a doubt whether he/she can afford the quality service, because spending on quality service must be high.

In the 1^st case the insurance company is paying 80% of all cost and the rest (100 – 80 =) 20% is paying by the patient. Since most of the costs are funded by the insurance company, the patient can get quality service.

In the 2^nd case there is no insurance and the patient is paying the 100% of cost. The choice of quality service may not be entertained by the healthcare provider.

9.

Required Issues are as below:

No.1) Costly: Health care items like medical equipment, nursing, etc. are now becoming expensive. Compare to other goods the prices of these items are increasing faster. People have no way but to spend more for their survival. Therefore, health care expenditure rose faster.          

No.2) Lack of insurance: Most of the people still don’t have insurance; offering quality service to them becomes difficult, since it requires higher expenses.

No.3) Moral hazard: people may hide that they have earlier diseases because of not increasing the premium amount of insurance. It affects insurance policies and payments.     

No.4) Suitable policy: it is very hard to get a single policy that helps both healthcare provider and healthcare getter; suppose technological advancement in healthcare may not be always entertained because of the association of higher cost.

No.5) Exact amount: what amount of insurance is optimal could be a million dollar question. People don’t know what their futures are; therefore, making a suitable plan for future is completely guess work or general tendency. The actual spending may be much higher.