Introduction
State financial sources are the basis of the healthcare economy of any developed country. It is believed that an increase in the financing of the health care system makes it possible to improve the population’s access to medical care, which, accordingly, is reflected in improving the quality of life and increasing its duration. It also seems inevitable that the increase in healthcare costs is due to the widespread use of expensive medical equipment and the introduction of advanced medical technologies and innovative medicines into clinical practice.
Medical expenditures are one of the most widely discussed and sensitive topics of public administration in any country. Even though medical expenditures have a relatively small effect on health, the government must increase medical spending. The availability of medical care and its quality, and thus life expectancy, depends on proper funding. The United States invests more per capita on medical services than other countries, but the health overall does not become better (Papanicolas et al., 2018). The increase in medical expenses may be due to several objective factors:
- Increase in the total life expectancy of the population, which resulted in a multiple increases in demand for various types of services and new medical technologies;
- Emergence of new and the return of old diseases, which required a significant increase in the costs of conducting research and development and organizing preventive measures;
- Development of medical science, as a result of which there is a mass introduction of new expensive methods of diagnosis and treatment into medical practice (Purba et al., 2019);
- Change in priorities, when an increasing number of people begin to consider health as the main component of the quality of life and one of the central and essential values.
In recent years, spending on developing and promoting a healthy lifestyle, an integral part of quitting smoking and reducing excess weight, has been increasing in developed countries. Therefore, it is no less important to take into account the lifestyle of the population, in particular, the proportion of regular smokers and obese people: after all, the higher the proportion of these people, the higher the incidence of severe, costly diseases in the country, respectively, the higher the cost of medical care (Wang et al., 2018).
Source Evaluation
Basic assumptions: There is a belief that there are plenty of resources on the topic of healthcare. However, there is not enough research about the effect of medical expenditures on the improvement of the provision of healthcare. Health care must be available for all humans, and in order for it to become better, it needs financial help from the government. This paper evaluates three sources of medical expenditures and their effect on the healthcare system.
Title: How important are health care expenditures for life expectancy? A comparative European analysis
Authors: Wim J. A. van den Heuvel, Marinela Olaroiu
Publication Date: March 1, 2017
Purpose of the article: In this source, the authors analyze the relationship between life expectancy at birth and health care costs (van den Heuvel & Olaroiu, 2017). The accounting includes expenditures on such aspects as social production and education, the quantity and quality of medical services, and lifestyle in general.
Summary of the article: The study is a cross-sectional study that analyzes data from 31 European countries. In conclusion, the authors state that people have a significantly higher life expectancy in countries that spend a high percentage of their GDP on social protection. In these countries, there are fewer treatment places, a low death rate among children, and a smaller number of patients who are dissatisfied with medical care.
Criticism: This article is helpful for further research because it emphasizes that in order to achieve high life expectancy, investments should be made in spending on social protection and improving the quality of medical care. The criticism of this work may be that it does not provide alternative options for financial assistance to the health care system.
Conclusion: The significance of the share of state payments is confirmed by the proven influence of the volume of state financing of healthcare on one of the main indicators of public health – the average life expectancy. Even in conditions of scarcity of resources, health protection needs funds that come from the state continuously and in sufficient volume. The mechanism of this influence is obviously an increase in the availability of high-quality health care for the population and, therefore, the possibility of achieving a higher quality of life associated with health.
Title: Modeling health care expenditures and use
Authors: Partha Deb and Edward C. Norton
Publication Date: January 12, 2018
Purpose of the article: In this paper, the authors attempt to evaluate and interpret the effects of a natural experiment.
Summary of the article: The authors used two non-linear statistical models: health care costs and calculations of the use of medical services (Deb & Norton, 2018). This research also mentions the best practical methods for modeling health care expenditures. As problems may arise in the future, the authors note that as the range of statistical models available for health spending continues to grow, it is essential to study their strong and weak characteristics.
Criticism: Despite the fact that the authors provide a number of alternative options, they do not specify exactly which, in their opinion, is the best or how they could possibly be combined. Statistical tests for choosing the optimal model for a particular data set can help in solving these problems.
Conclusion: The incorrect construction of the healthcare financing model seems to be a factor hindering its development as an industry. In addition, it does not allow fully ensure the availability of medical services for the population as well as maintain a high-quality level of medical care. Therefore, it is necessary to correctly select and create and analyze models of aid spending.
Title: Public health expenditures and health outcomes: new evidence from Ghana
Authors: Micheal Kofi Boachie, K. Ramu and Tatjana Põlajeva
Publication Date: 2018
Purpose of the article: The article reviews the relationship between public spending and its health impact. This is done in order to determine whether state intervention in the health sector improves the results of medical care.
Summary of the article: The analysis uses data for Ghana from the period 1980-2014 (Kofi Boachie et al., 2018). The study showed that health spending has a positive impact on health care in Ghana. The study is valuable because it shows that despite the impact of income on health exceeding the cost, high-income inequality makes government intervention necessary. Thus, actions should be aimed at increasing investments in the medical care sector, including improving the health of the population.
Criticism: In this paper, there are also no options that can help increase the financing of the healthcare system.
Conclusion: Financing medical organizations is one of the most difficult, vulnerable and quite problematic areas today. People need medical care regardless of income or social status. The entire health insurance system is based on the main goal of guaranteeing citizens to receive medical care at the expense of funds and financing (Alspaugh et al., 2021). However, to form the value of health and a healthy lifestyle, to provide preventive measures, treatment, and rehabilitation of the population, it is necessary to ensure the effective functioning of the health care system, which directly depends on financial support.
The financing of medical organizations is one of the most challenging, vulnerable, and quite problematic areas today. Due to insufficient funding of the healthcare system, medical organizations are forced to ensure the availability and quality of medical care in conditions of limited resources (Ortiz-Ospina, E., & Roser, 2017). As well as ensure transformation and optimization of the cost structure and changes in the specific weight of individual expenditure items in the total amount of expenses. The advantage of this solution is that such a modification of expenses will allow redistribution of the released funds and direct them to finance the most priority items of expenditure at the moment, for example, medicines or specialized equipment. Another advantage is that this solution will ensure the availability and quality of medical care. The modification of the composition and structure of expenses is an advantage and will allow changing funding and attracting funds to priority areas to ensure the availability and quality of medical care provided.
References
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Deb, P., & Norton, E. C. (2018). Modeling health care expenditures and use. Annual Review of Public Health, 39, 489-505. Web.
Kofi Boachie, M., Ramu, K., & Põlajeva, T. (2018). Public health expenditures and health outcomes: new evidence from Ghana. Economies, 6(4). Web.
Papanicolas, I., Woskie, L. R., & Jha, A. K. (2018). Health care spending in the United States and other high-income countries. Jama, 319(10), Web.
Purba, J. H. V., Ratodi, M., Mulyana, M., Wahyoedi, S., Andriana, R., Shankar, K., & Nguyen, P. T. (2019). Prediction Model in Medical Science and Health Care. International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology, 8, 815-818.
van den Heuvel, W. J., & Olaroiu, M. (2017). How important are health care expenditures for life expectancy? A comparative, European analysis. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 18(3), 276e9-276e12. Web.
Wang, P., Hu, J., Ghadermarzi, S., Raza, A., O’Connell, D., Xiao, A., Ayyaz, F., Zhi, M., Zhang, Y., Parekh, N.K., Lazarev, M., Parian, A., Brant, R.S., Bedine, M., Truta, B., Hu, P., Banerjee, R., & Hutfless, S. M. (2018). Smoking and inflammatory bowel disease: a comparison of China, India, and the USA. Digestive diseases and sciences, 63(10), 2703-2713. Web.