5. Health Economic and Insurance

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:

1. Protect people from the risk of incurring medical expenses;
2. Universal health care guarantee all people’s right of medical care;
3. Improves the quality of health care;
4. People and government are more likely to seek preventative care;
5. Allowing medical professionals to concentrate on treating patients;
6. Increasing the rate of medical innovation;
7. reducing wastefulness in the delivery of health care;
8. Progressivity of health care financing has limited implications for overall income inequality