5. Health Economic and Insurance
Health economics concerns with issues related to scarcity in the allocation of health and health care. It is divided into eight distinct topics: 1.What influences health? 2. What is health and what is its value; 3. The demand for health care; 4. The supply of health care; 5. Micro-economic evaluation at treatment level; 6. Market equilibrium; 7. Evaluation at whole system level; 8. Planning, budgeting and monitoring mechanisms.
Funding models of health insurance: universal health care in most countries has been achieved by a mixed model of funding, including single payer, taxation revenue, compulsory insurance, private insurance, etc.
Economic impact and benefits of health insurance:
- Protect people from the risk of incurring medical expenses;
- Universal health care guarantee all people’s right of medical care;
- Improves the quality of health care;
- People and government are more likely to seek preventative care;
- Allowing medical professionals to concentrate on treating patients;
- Increasing the rate of medical innovation;
- reducing wastefulness in the delivery of health care;
- Progressivity of health care financing has limited implications for overall income inequality
