Choose a topic broad enough, like one of the ones listed below, to generate a tw
ID: 387880 • Letter: C
Question
Choose a topic broad enough, like one of the ones listed below, to generate a two-page report. Make sure that the topic lends itself to having information that can be supported with visual aids. Suggested topics can include:
Try to get resources from a variety of sources and authors. Ensure that you have enough resources to generate a two-page report.
Do you think the source is credible? What credentials does the author have? Are there any hidden agendas driving the author's point of view? Consider other factors to determine the quality of the source.
Use a word processor to generate a two-page (500-word) report on your topic.
Use a graphics program (ex. PowerPoint, drawing tools in MS Word) to create two visual aids to support or explain the content in your report. Make sure that you label the diagrams.
Step 1
Select a business topic.Choose a topic broad enough, like one of the ones listed below, to generate a two-page report. Make sure that the topic lends itself to having information that can be supported with visual aids. Suggested topics can include:
- Information on the sale of a new product in the United States
- The US economy and its effect on businesses
- The current financial status of healthcare in the United States
Step 2
Perform the research.Try to get resources from a variety of sources and authors. Ensure that you have enough resources to generate a two-page report.
Step 3
Evaluate the resources found in terms of quality and credibility.Do you think the source is credible? What credentials does the author have? Are there any hidden agendas driving the author's point of view? Consider other factors to determine the quality of the source.
Step 4
Report your findings.Use a word processor to generate a two-page (500-word) report on your topic.
Step 5
Incorporate visual aids.Use a graphics program (ex. PowerPoint, drawing tools in MS Word) to create two visual aids to support or explain the content in your report. Make sure that you label the diagrams.
Explanation / Answer
In the field of government,healthcare plays an active role in raising the living and health standards of its people in any nation. For the United States, the federal government runs two most reachable and expanded programs for the provision of health care services to the elderly and the indigent: Medicare and Medicaid. These are tax-supported systems initiated by the federal government that include the payments for services provided in the private market.
The current US income tax code tends to subsidize the medical expenditure by households most of whom are neither elderly nor poor. In this way, the government alters the price of health services.
The Government can also intervene to regulate the quality of medical services especially when consumers are usually rationally ignorant. Quality regulations are directed mostly at the structure of operation. An example to this situation may include a public agency that requires its medical workers have professional licensed or may direct to maintain a minimum staff-to-patient ratio. A higher level of quality in medical structures encourages increased quality at the process and outcome stages. The implication however that is the regulations implies higher costs of production which ultimately implies a reduction in the supply of medical services.
Government’s role in price regulation depends on the degree of competition, the intensity of third party involvement, moral hazard produced by health insurance and the base on which the price ceiling is applied. Price controls create shortages of goods and can cause other unintended effects such as reductions in quality, longer waiting lines, and discrimination against selected groups, for instance.
The US health insurance market is considered to be highly concentrated because the leading insurers have carried out almost 400 mergers till the period of mid-2000s. Most of the provider markets like hospitals are highly concentrated too, around 80% which implies that the insurers have little choice and consequently little leverage to control the prices they are paying.
Large insurers from time to time negotiate most-favored nation MFN clauses with providers, consenting to increase the rates significantly. When there are few firms in the market, each one is operating at different price levels, the market structure that best describes it is Oligopoly. Though there may be some small producers operating in the market, a few large firms dominate. A loss in social welfare is always on the cards which is often due to informational asymmetry.
In this case, there are three health insuring firms now with same level of output but at different prices. The five largest health insurers have just fallen to a level of three since the Anthem’s acquisition of Cigna and Aetna’s purchase of Humana. UnitedHealth Group has sat out the merger wave. When the mergers are complete, the three largest insurers will control over 130 million covered lives. Hence, the industry is steadily becoming an oligopoly.