Health Care Spending free essay sample

Health Care Spending Health Care Reform Project-Part III HCS/440 February 11, 2013 In the following passage our team will be discussing what we have learned over the past 3 weeks in our economics and financing of health care class. We will discuss what subjects we struggled in as well as excelled in during the first 3 weeks of class. We will discuss major sources, the aging population as well as supply and demand and how they affect health care spending. One of the major topics discussed was marketing and how it affects spending in health care. Just like any other industry, marketing allows organizations to show their products to the public to increase business. Health care is ultimately a business and different health organizations are constantly competing with each other to get the business of anyone that needs their services. We constantly see commercials on television and ads in the paper advertising hospital systems, new drugs, and new procedures. We will write a custom essay sample on Health Care Spending or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The purposes of these commercials are to allow the viewer to see the standard of care that each organization provides in an attempt to get their business. Ultimately, the effect marketing has on health care is that it makes it a bigger industry by attracting more business. In health care, we found that marketing is not always cut and dry. In some cases, there can be a conflict between a patient’s desire to be healthy and the organization’s desire to make a profit. The question of whether it is ethical for pharmaceutical companies to advertise their drugs came into consideration in week 3. In this discussion, we determined that it needs to be left to the doctor to choose medications for patients on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, this kind of marketing is unnecessary. Pharmaceutical companies should market their products to hospitals and doctor’s practices and let the doctors make the decision to use them. During week 3 there were many different topics address within the learning team that we felt comfortable working with along with some that we struggled with. One of the topics that the learning team had to work with within week three was identifying major sources of health care spending. As a group we chose to discuss the aging population and with an aging population come more spending within the health care field. While researching this topic we discovered that this baby boom generation will end up costing the nation more money than any other aging generation. With the nation facing this dilemma the amount of money spent and where it’s being spent becomes an issue for that nation. We struggled with trying to find where the nation could cut its contributions because some people just can’t afford to receive care without the nations help. Many cuts to the spending involves changes within the process of receiving care however, the people have to follow these procedures in order to make them work and if each person doesn’t it won’t work for the nation as a whole. Health care spending was mainly covered in week 3. One of the topics was identifying the effect of health care spending on supply and demand. It is understood that health care spending is rapidly increasing. Obama care is aiming to curb this spending with his plan with this plan; there will be more people that will have access to health care, which is good. However, this will affect demands dramatically. This will due to there being more people with health care insurance; therefore, the demand for health care services will increase. There are a few things that need to change in health care in order to keep up with some of the new implementations and the increasing demand for health care services. One of these changes should be an increase of health care professionals. Another idea that would help would be to shorten medical school. According to True Cost (2009), â€Å"Doctors in the UK and other countries finish their medical education in six years or less before going on to training programs (residency), while US doctors spend eight years between college and medical school. † This could help to increase the supply of medical services which can help to affect the costs of health care spending. Health care is an important subject not only in the United States but worldwide however it is the United States that seems to have a lot of issues when it comes to health care and the amount of moneys that it has and will take to keep this nation healthy. It is extremely important that we as a nation get a grasp as to what is happening in our health care system as far as spending goes because our lives depend on it. We must find a solution to taking better care of our citizens.