Enacting Universal Healthcare

Economics enacting universal healthcare

1) Suppose the government were to enact universal coverage with $2500 deductibles. What problems would that policy solve? What problems would it cause?

Having universal health coverage comes with many pros and cons. The pros would be that all doctors would be charging the same price, so the better physicians would be more available to the poorer population. Also, many more people would be able to get the medical care they require. However, the cons include with the better physicians being more available, their patient list would be so overloaded that people would have to be on a wait list and potentially turned away in order to receive treatment. In addition, competition between physicians would decrease, thus causing a decrease in the standard level of care available.

2) One of the most significant costs of modern medicine involves malpractice insurance. Should the government limit the amounts that juries are allowed to award victims of medical malpractice, so as to reduce malpractice insurance premiums and thereby lower healthcare costs? Explain.

Malpractice insurance is a necessary evil. The high cost of malpractice insurance benefits the patients in the long run. If juries were limited to the amount they were able to award the victims of a malpractice incident, the victims would be victimized all over again. The cost of money that can be awarded should always fit the situation, and will often vary from incident to incident. By limiting the amount juries can award a victim can severely hinder a victim’s ability to survive medically and/or financially. In addition, with the change to universal health care in this given scenario, more malpractice situations are likely to happen due to the decrease in physician competition as well as patient list overloads for more reputable physicians.