HAELTH POLICY AND INSURANCE


HEALTH POLICY AND INSURANCE



Much of the debate about health policy in the United States has focused on the availability of health insurance coverage and the relatively large number of individuals who are uninsured. While tackling the problem of the uninsured might improve access to and utilization of health care, it would likely have little effect on the health of the population, as there is only a weak connection between health insurance coverage and health. Expanding health insurance coverage alone significantly is unlikely to improve the health of the population or narrow health disparities within the population, given that many of the major causes of poor health such as smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity are largely unaffected by health insurance.
The narrow focus on the uninsured in the health policy debate comes at the expense of other policies that could improve health faster and more significantly for every dollar spent. It is well-known that the United States spends approximately twice as much per capita on health care as most other developed nations, but there is little difference in population health between the United States and other developed nations. This suggests that we are on the ‘‘flat part of the curve’’ of health care spending with respect to health and as a result need to pursue other approaches for improving population health.
In light of the imbalance in health policy debate in the United States, in November 2007, the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and College of Medicine at the University of Illinois sponsored a conference entitled Beyond Health Insurance: Public Policy to Improve Health. The purpose of the conference was to make available to the public new research on policies that can significantly improve the health of the US population. The conference focused on four areas: reducing racial and ethnic health disparities, preventing disease and promoting health, developing and regulating pharmaceuticals, and improving consumer information.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fundamental and Particular Risks

Image
Fundamental and Particular Risks The distinction between fundamental and partiCUlar risks is based on the concept of hazard defined by Kulp. Particular risks involve losses that arise out of individual events and are felt by individuals rather than a group. Fundamental risks involve losses that affect a large segment of the population. The later are caused for the most part by economic, social, climatic, health and/or political phenomena. Examples are wars, earthquakes, health diseases, economic recessions leading to unemployment.   Fundamental risks may be static or dynamic.Systematic and Unsystematic Risks This is a basic principle in financial management: risk can be eliminated through diversification. Diversification reduces risks if all the outcomes of risky events do not produce the same result or do not arise all at the same time. The convention in finance is to interpret risk in the spirit of Willet and Knight. A risky outcome is one that can assure a number of values. It i...
Read more

The Risk Management Process

Image
The Risk Management Process Hamrd (or Risk) Identification One of the most critical functions of risk man agement  is probably the identification process. A failure to recognize the existence of one or more potential events can result in financial disaster. The importance of being able to anticipate the existence of the problem before it materializes is recognized by everyone but unfortunately there is no scientific method or systemic approach to the identification process. In the extreme case, the very existence of the risk may be unknown. In the past, exposure identification has largely been exercised in terms of those exposures that are insurable and in terms of the company past experience. The most difficult part of the identification process is that it requires that the manager be clairvoyant and continually asks "what if" questions. Williams and Heins (1989) define risk identification as "the process by which a business systematically and continuously identifies pr...
Read more

The Objective of Risk Management

Image
The Objective of Risk Management According to asset pricing models in Finance, the risks specific to a firm are diversifiable and therefore irrelevant except as it affects  the firm's systematic risk. However, corporations are majors purchasers of insurance and financial futures and forward contracts, sign long-term purchase and sales contracts, and engage in a variety of activities to avoid or reduce risks. One explanation of this behavior is that asset pricing models are concerned only with the effect of risk on market discount rates and for the most part ignore its effect on expected cashflows. Property losses are often not the only losses that occur when property is damaged or destroyed. Until that property is replaced or restored to its initial condition, the business may suffer a reduction in its net income either because revenues are decreased or because expenses are increased or both. Any action taken by a firm that decreases risks, improves its prospects for survival and...
Read more