Ethics and Healthcare Reform
Do you believe there is a failure or success of capitalism in healthcare?
Capitalism in healthcare has been a failure. That is because capitalism is a business concept that does not translate well to healthcare that revolves around the conundrum of cost, quality and access. Capitalism is guided by two main concepts. Firstly, prices and profits signal to the producers what products are required so that they set supply and demand parameters. Ethics and Healthcare Reform Assignment Paper Producers looking for profits will supply what is in demand in the correct quantity at a competitive price. Secondly, high profits can be generated for goods that are low in supply but high in demand as they attract more production efforts. On the other hand, low profits would be generated for goods that are high in supply but low in demand as they attract less production efforts. The shift between low and high profits continues until an equilibrium is achieved (Buppert, 2020).
BUY A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
These concepts work well in business but do not work well in healthcare because of two reasons. Firstly, for-profit healthcare organization would not make bad business decisions. For instance, private insurance companies would not insure persons who have preconditions that attract high health care costs, such as asthma, heart disease, depression and cancer. Insuring persons with preconditions are considered uninsurable risks would reduce their profits (de Soya & Vadlamannati, 2021). Secondly, capitalism in healthcare has not worked in any place. Case studies of capitalism in healthcare reveals that it causes healthcare costs to rise. Private insurers in capitalism markets demand high deductibles so that cost of healthcare is kept high. Thirdly, the government is forced to act to ensure costs are not a burden. The government acts through subsidies. This means that consumers are not allowed to freely act and react in forcing prices down (Sell, 2019). Overall, capitalism in healthcare is a failure.
References
Buppert, C. (2020). Nurse Practitioner’s Business Practice and Legal Guide (7th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
de Soysa, I. & Vadlamannati, K. C. (2021). Does free-market capitalism drive unequal access to health? An empirical analysis, 1970–2015. Global Public Health, 16(12), 1904-1921. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2020.1849350
Sell, S. K. (2019). 21st-century capitalism: structural challenges for universal health care. Global Health, 15, Article number 76. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-019-0517-3