Essay Example on Public Health and Economic Performance

Introduction

Certain factors characterize the economies of most nations in the world. Healthcare and education are among the significant factors that determine the performance of an economy. This explains why most governments have taken this responsibility from the private sector and put it to be a government responsibility. Not only do the local governments have the responsibility for health and education, but also other agencies, at the international face. This paper aims to discuss whether public healthcare and training should be better funded and standards improved.

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Arguments for Public Health Care Funding

To start with Public Health care, the health of everyone in the society is of grave importance since the people is what forms a government and a nation. Personal hygiene has been dealt with through various educational facilities to teach people how to take care of themselves. Public health Care deals with providing health services for a larger group of people, mostly things they cannot either access or manage. The fact that these services are either not available or expensive would call for the assistance of other sectors.

Public Health Care comprises several factors that come together to offer these services. The three main components include labour, capital, and resources necessary. Labour would consist of the caregivers like the doctors and the nurses, among others. Capital comprises of infrastructure, equipment, and all other fixed assets within the health facility (Lewis, 2019). Resources would consist of items like the drugs that are needed in the health care facility and other complementary elements.

To have effective public health care, it would be prudent for the concerned agencies and the government to ensure that the three factors above are of high quality. For example, the care facilities would require competent staff, which forms the labour. Public healthcare also depends on updated technology, which would, therefore, require high-level technology, falling under the infrastructure. Finally, most of the active drugs and the complementary elements are expensive, which makes it difficult for the local people to access. Due to these factors, the funding of public healthcare is, therefore, very vital.

According to Levi and DeSalvo, 2019, investment in public health has been seen to save lives and money. This accounted for a 25years increase in life expectancy. Levi and DeSalvo say that these achievements can be attributed to the standards that were set for public health. Some of these standards included ensuring the services were available to everyone, being predictable to problems instead of being crisis-oriented, keeping or records as evidence for identifying priorities, and inventing a solution (DeSalvo, & Levi, 2019). These show that public health should not only be funded but also that standards be set for it to guide how the funds would be used.

Arguments against Public Health Care Funding

The funding of public health may not be necessary, however, since other bridges have been formed between society and health care. This includes the Medicare and Medicaid Services introduced in the United States of America. The federal government sets a lot of money for these programs, which have replaced the role of the traditional public health (Strauble, 2013). The primary focus of these two programs is to bring about prevention services instead of waiting for a problem to come up, like public health.

Another problem with funding public health is poor accountability patterns, which brings about corruption. This is because the performance indicators are very few. Other factors include the heterogeneous nature of healthcare, very high variables, and unpredictable nature, which make accountability difficult (Lewis, 2019). These factors, therefore, explain why the funding and setting standards for public health care should not be set.

Arguments for Funding Education

The second important factor for every economy is education. Improved healthcare facilities have seen the population of many countries grow in the previous years. This means that the capacity of several schools is anting. Education has been seen to transform society because it is from the knowledge that student gets that inventions and innovations are born. The funding of the education sector and the improvement of standards should, therefore, be considered.

The first reason being that education is expensive, and a majority of the population cannot afford it. This is because schooling comprises of the labour, resources, and other factors that are of importance. The poor, who form the majority in most economies, cannot afford quality education, and therefore, it would be vital to funding it.

The teaching and learning environment is also an influencing factor in the academic performance of students. These fall under the responsibility of the national government in the allocation of resources. Since students would require these god environments, they would need the assistance of funds from both the local government and other willing agencies.

According to Marti, Boser, Benner and Baffour. 2018, the dollar must be the start for all conversations surrounding equity. He argues that high-quality education requires funding, which would lead to an improved outcome. High poverty communities suffered from limited access to core academic services that are integral in students' performance (Martin, Boser, Benner & Baffour, 2018). This would explain the reason for large numbers of fiscal lawsuits that have seen resources being channelled to schools for students.

Funding for education is not a direct guarantee of any improvement in general academic performance. However, every school must have the requirements, including teachers, books, and writing materials. Without these, learning would be made more difficult for the student and even for the teacher (OECD, 2017). Therefore, funding would only serve to complement the teaching of the student.

Funding is necessary mostly in the higher learning institution and at the preparatory levels. This is because the foundation that a child gets would define the rest of the journey. At high levels of education, learning is more technical and becomes difficult even for the private sector. For example, medical schools, and they require some facilities like the morgues and biomedical equipment that are to be used in their practices. These would then expect them to have support from other agencies and the government since the cost is too high.

Funding for education is also essential since it is a way of improving society. The school has been known to define the quality of life of people. It promotes international interactions, and these have been seeing to bring people from their low estates to becoming essential people in society. The funding of education would not, therefore, be on an individual benefit but the community at large.

Arguments against Education Funding

Funding education may not, however, account for the general performance of students. Data analysis on a macro level of funding education indicates that there is a difference in learning outcome across countries which cannot be accounted for in expenditure on education. These findings suggest that education outcomes would be more sensitive to the improving of the quality of the teacher, for example, and not the sizes of classes (Roser & Estenban, 2019). Students' abilities and determination also would play a significant role in their performance and not necessarily the availability of resources.

The other reason against the funding of education and standard for improvement is that it makes parents reluctant to their responsibility to their children. Free education has seen many students, and both parents took it for granted because they do not feel the pain of paying. It would be advocated for a cost-sharing so that students take their education seriously. This can be better explained with the exemplary performance of the private sector where all the stakeholders understand the reason why they are there to produce good results in their respective fields of responsibility.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the funding of public health and education has its own significant reasons. This is because these two sectors are the most important in any economy. Both require the basics for it to be run. These expenses are too high to be paid by individuals, and therefore funding is the most appropriate. The reasons why they should not be supported is on the grounds of corruption and lack of accountability of the public health and the reluctance of stakeholders of education.

References

DeSalvo, K. B., & Levi, J. (2019). Public Health WINS Is a Call to Arms as Well as a Roadmap for All Who Care About a Thriving, Healthy Nation.

Lewis, M. (2019). Governance and Corruption in Public Health Care Systems. Center for Global Development is working paper, (78). Retrieved from http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/anticorrupt/Corruption%20WP_78.pdf

Martin C, Boser U, Benner M & Baffour P. 2018. A Quality Approach to School Funding. Lessons Learned From School Finance Litigation. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2018/11/13/460397/quality-approach-school-funding/

OECD (2017). The Funding of School Education: Connecting Resources and Learning,

OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264276147-en

Roser M & Esteban O. (2019). Financing Education. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https: //ourworldindata.org/financing-education' [Online Resource]

Straube, B. M. (2013). A Role For Government: An Observation on Federal Healthcare Efforts In prevention. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 44(1), S39-S42.Retrieved from https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797 (12)00631-9/abstract