Injustice of Healthcare Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Injustice of Healthcare - Essay Example The health care system's systematic exploitation of the many for the benefit of the privileged few has been over-looked, underestimated, or conveniently ignored by analysts and policymakers. Contrary to the assumptions of many observers, ordinary Americans are not well served by health policies and practices founded on the premise that health care should be beyond price. There are numerous identifiable ways in which political and legal systems in the United States directly or indirectly foreclose opportunities for lower- and middle-income consumers to enhance their own, as well as aggregate, welfare by purchasing low-cost, arguably lower-quality health care and health coverage. In this essay, the over regulation of the providers has been outlined and the various theological and philosophical perspectives on the injustice have been produced in the subsequent sections. The most wide spread kind of regulation of the health care sector is entry control through occupational licensure. The barring from the market of individuals who do not meet minimum standards of competence in the regulated field of endeavor, can enhance consumers' welfare by minimizing both their exposure to risks of bad service and their uncertainty in purchasing complex services. However, entry controls raise costs by excluding providers who might serve some clients adequately and cheaply, thus forcing those clients (mostly lower-income individuals) to pay higher prices for arguably more reliable services. The resulting higher prices cause some consumers to forgo needed services, with adverse health consequences. The lower-income segment of the population, even if protected against costly mistakes, bears many more of the costs of exclusionary licensure than more affluent interests. In any field in which government regulates entry, entry standards will be inefficiently high, causing more hardship than is optimal. Although quality-enhancing standards limit opportunities for cost-reducing innovations, the consumers tend to value disproportionately the added security they are supplied. Occupational regulation has other costs besides those flowing from state-imposed restrictions on entry. State legislatures typically also delegate responsibility for regulating practice of a licensed occupation to its licensing board. Such boards make rules not only curtailing the supply of competitors but also suppressing advertising, corporate or commercial practice, and other practices that might intensify competition and foster consumer choice. Moreover, at the same time that they largely control the regulatory apparatus, the licensees in each field generally organize themselves privately not only to advance their political objectives, but also to set private standards for professional practice, educational programs, and institutional providers of services. Although such private entities may not directly enforce the standards they set, these standards and their accompanying certifications of compliance usually carry decisive weight in the marketplace and with state regulators. With the public generally unaware of the cost and competitive implications of such publicly sanctioned self-regulatory regimes, the interests of the regulated are commonly advanced at consumers' expense, with cost increases a