Healthcare Economics
Despite the U.S’s remarkable economic prosperity, it is among the nations with the most expensive healthcare charges. I agree that the transformation of healthcare in the U.S into a profit-driven industry is a virus affecting the system and inflating medical costs (Ubel, 2014). As stakeholders in the healthcare system strive to increase, their earnings citizens incur the high medical cost.
Most Americans have purchased health insurance, and they have to pay lump sums of money to ensure they are covered. The insurers have a network of physicians with who they have negotiated reimbursement rate whereas they patients are not given any information about the comparative cost of the physicians (Roy, 2010). Insurers provide patients with a bill that is difficult to decipher the relationship between costs and services. The implication is that the insurers and physicians can manipulate patients into paying more premiums than necessary. Insurers do not focus on the quality of care or affordability but rather on their agreement with a medical facility. For example, there might be qualified physicians offering care for low charges, but insurers will still direct patients to their expensive network’s physicians.
Health care is regarded as a commodity that is only affordable to those who are resourceful. For example, poor people do not have access to healthcare because they do not have insurance. These people are often admitted to the emergency department, which would have been avoided if they received medical attention on time. Medical errors are common because of the profit motive (Caswell, 2019). Practitioners are not attentive and fail to follow up on their patients because they regard them as customers and want them to come back repeatedly (to make more out of their numerous visits).
References
Caswell, W. (2019, March 18). Profit as a Disease, and Now an Epidemic. Modern Health Talk. https://www.mhealthtalk.com/profit/
Roy, A. (2010). Health care and the profit motive. National Affairs. https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/health-care-and-the-profit-motive
Ubel, P. (2014, February 12). Is The Profit Motive Ruining American Healthcare? Forbes. https://forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/02/12/is-the-profit-motive-ruining-american-healthcare/?sh=7f6150937b97