Essay Example on Healthcare: Essential for Human Wellbeing and Economic Sustainability

Introduction

Health is rudimentary for the wellbeing of the human race. A healthy generation is essential as it helps in the sustaining of the economy, ensures a happy life for human beings and also reduces the health-related financial burden to the governments. The World Health Organization advocates that healthcare is one of the most fundamental rights for human beings (World Health Organization, 2015). Therefore, it equilibrates the provision of healthcare to all human beings without discrimination. As much as many countries come up with policies on affordable healthcare, many of them fail at implementing them, creating problems of healthcare services affordability. However, from the previously written position paper, it was explicitly noted that the noble class could access the healthcare services, whether within the state or outside. The healthcare brief, therefore, outlines some of the problems that most countries face in implementing for affordable healthcare and also provides alternative policies with their economic implications.

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Mandatory Health Care

The provision of universal healthcare faces the challenges of the high cost of the services offered. Apparently, affordable services are reflected by the ease of paying for them (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2018). Global statistics show that the worldwide economy contributes only a tenth of its budget towards the health sector (Byrant, 2019). The budget indicates that people still have to pay for health services. The question of affordability comes on whether the people can pay for these services. According to Evan and Stoddart (2017), most people are not able to pay for these services due to their financial capabilities, meaning that the financially stable can access the best healthcare services. The observation leads to the conclusion that as much as healthcare is a fundamental right for every human being, it is only accessible to those that are economically endowed.

However, as much as affordability is deeply reflected upon, it can still be looked at in terms of the cost implication to the government (Kantarjian, 2017). The cost can be viewed in terms of the equipment, the personnel, and the nature of the illness being treated and taking a look at the current upsurge of cancer cases. Cancer treatment is costly worldwide, and the economic implications are very high on the government (Bray, Jemal, Torre, Forman, & Vineis, 2015). In third world countries, most people are not economically endowed, and therefore, they cannot afford to pay for the prices of the services in terms of therapy, medication, and other support services such as counselling. In addition to this, the equipment that is used to treat such diseases is costly, and governments might fail to purchase them, a disadvantage to the low-income earners because of their inability to seek for professional health services from abroad (Mvundura & Tsu, 2014). Hence, this limited economic privilege disadvantages the accessibility to the necessary healthcare.

In addition to this, most health institutions, whether private or public face difficulties in attaining viable economic margins (Quintana & Safran, 2017). This is as a result of the staggering cost the institutions face as a result of the decline of revenue and high administrative costs. According to Quintana & Safran (2017), this cost is expected to further rise as a result of the development of new technologies and therapeutic services that help in combatting diseases. This cost is reflected in the budgetary allocations; for instance, the healthcare cost is expected to rise to over $ 8.7 trillion. The common contributors to this vast and increasingly unsustainable health budget include rapid population growth, huge labour costs and technological advancements in the health sector.

Political factors also play a role in the provision of universal healthcare (Marmout & Allen, 2015). Political divides might have different approaches regarding policy formulation and implementation of affordable health care. One side might lobby for the improvement of existing infrastructure to give better services to the people while the other divide lobby for purchase of new infrastructure to help tackle new diseases. Therefore, this misalignment of interests is a major cause of stagnation in the development and implementation policies that will help in the provision of affordable health services to all citizens (Roe, 2017). These political battles, in summary, affect the economically challenged in society and will only favour those who are endowed financially, as they will have access to the best medical facilities and services.

Policy Implications

Both levels of government must take the healthcare initiative of its people regardless of their financial status. Hence, this is in line with the provisions of the World Health Organization that advocates for the provision of affordable healthcare services to all since everyone is equal (World Health Organization, 2015). Several attempts put across need slight improvement or reinforcement to bridge the gap between the healthcare services offered to the rich and the poor.

Firstly, some health services are costly, which is one of the main reasons why most of the people cannot get the best healthcare. To prevent this, governments have set up insurance schemes where people can remit the premium, and in case of a disease, the premium paid to the insurance companies will be used to settle the medical bills. Therefore, this has been exemplified in the USA through the introduction of Obamacare. Obamacare was introduced in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act of 2014 (Kantarjian, 2014). It came into action as a result of the massive population of uninsured people; this act came into place to help lower the disparity between the rich and the less privileged in terms of the provision of health services. It went further to ensure that the people who were insured by the program received regular medical care since its inception there has been an increase in the number of people who have been protected by the program with the CDC approximating to about 24 million people (Frank, 2017). The program ensured that a vast number of people could receive the necessary medication regardless of their economic status.

Notably, many people in the world live below the poverty line, depending on the living standards of each state. Therefore, the introduction of these insurance schemes only solves part of the problem. Introduction of subsidies, especially to particular groups of people such as the physically challenged and the elderly, is essential to ensure that the people are insured. The success of this program depends on how the government allocates its funds. An excellent example of this analogy is the Obamacare program. During this program, about 10 million people received subsidies from the government to ensure it captures a large population of previously uninsured people (Frank, 2017). Also, the program was aimed at reducing the tax inequality between the top earners and the fewer earners in the USA. The expansion of the program for low-income earners, therefore, meant that there was tax relief for the top earners (Frank, 2017). There was also an exemption of taxes for the insurance premium to ensure that the money was used as subsidies to pay for the insurance programs. All these efforts by the US Government aim at showing that healthcare should be a fundamental right for every human being; this indicates that additional improvement to insurance schemes and health subsidies projects the positive outcomes of healthcare affordability (Frank, 2017).

Recommendations

Taking into account the insurance efforts made by the federal USA government on providing mandatory healthcare to its citizens, this policy brief recommends that all states should follow suit in adherence to the provisions of WHO (2015). The predisposing factor for uneven healthcare administration to all lies in the high costs of the healthcare services that the patients receive. Therefore, dealing with the medical fee in terms of offering insurance and insurance subsidies will help in cutting down the cost of healthcare. The national and federal governments can also provide grants to persons to enjoy their right to mandatory healthcare.

Conclusion

The policy brief discusses the economic implications of having a working, affordable healthcare program. A working program would lower the cost of health both to the government and its Citizens. As the health of a nation defines its economic wellness, it is important that these policies are correctly implemented as this will help in lowering the allocation that would have otherwise been spent on unrelated healthcare programs.

References

Bray, F., Jemal, A., Torre, L. A., Forman, D., & Vineis, P. (2015). Long-term realism and cost-effectiveness: primary prevention in combatting cancer and associated inequalities worldwide. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 107(12). Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-abstract/107/12/djv273/2457725

Bryant, J. (2019). Health and the developing world. Cornell University Press.

Evans, R. G., & Stoddart, G. L. (2017). Producing health, consuming health care. In Why are some people healthy and others not? (pp. 27-64). Routledge.

Frank, R. (2017). What comes next for Obamacare? The case for Medicare for all. New York Times, March, 24. Retrieved from https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/gindart/2017-03-24%20-%20What%20comes%20next%20for%20Obamacare.pdf

Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Kantarjian, H. M. (2017). The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, 3 years later: A reality check. Cancer, 123(1), 25-28. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cncr.30384

Marmot, M., & Allen, J. J. (2014). Social determinants of health equity. Retrieved from https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302200

Mvundura, M., & Tsu, V. (2014). Estimating the costs of cervical cancer screening in highburden SubSaharan African countries. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 126(2), 151-155. Retrieved from https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.ijgo.2014.02.012

Quintana, Y., & Safran, C. (2017). Global Health Informatics-An Overview. In Global Health Informatics (pp. 1-13). Academic Press. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012804591600001XRoe, O. D. (2017). The high cost of new cancer therapies-A challenge of inequality for all countries. JAMA oncology, 3(9), 1169-1170. Retrieved from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/article-abstract/2594546

World Health Organization. (2015). WHO global disability action plan 2014-2021: Better health for all people with disability. World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=n180DgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=World+Health+Organization+2015&ots=uSK1mkH2n4&sig=eRHq06YTh4TsgpjkOMYyADm7MqM