Government versus Private Options for Quality - Essay Example

1. Identify in the first line of your essay the quality efforts you researched. 

The quality efforts are insurance quality offered by the private organizations and companies and that offered by the government. Most individuals seem to prefer the quality of healthcare service offered by the private insurance companies more than that offered by the government which is also commonly known as public insurance. This preference has therefore seen the quality in private insurance continue to improve more and people continuing to flock towards that side despite the payment rates being higher than those in public insurance which are subsidized by the government (Shi & Singh, 2011). 

1. Briefly describe the effort(s). In what ways is the government involved in the quality effort(s)? Do you agree that this is the best approach? Why or why not?  

The government has been trying to change this trend since it is expensive to the poor Americans who live in poverty and can therefore not afford the private insurance by increasing the public insurance and subsidizing the rates even further. This is in a bid to not only cover the poor citizens but also to provide competition to the private insurance companies and eventually make them reduce their cost (Culyer, 2009). Several healthcare reforms in the form of healthcare Acts have been proposed and some passed by congress which aims at subsidizing the cost of public insurance even further to compete with the private insurance. These include the Affordable Health Care for America Act and Public Option Act among others (Ulmer, C., Institute of Medicine (U.S), and Committee on Future Directions for the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports, 2010). 

This is not a good approach because the increasing competition does not necessarily mean the quality of the services provided by the public health insurance organization has improved. It may, therefore, make people move from the private to the public insurance due to the reduced costs and give them false hopes of better quality only for them to come back to the private insurance or some to completely miss out on health benefits and quality offered by the private healthcare insurance companies at the moment. The effort to lure people through competition is not enough to compete with the quality of the healthcare being offered (Aday, 2010). 

1. In your view can the market protect healthcare quality adequately or is government involvement needed? Justify your position and provide specific examples. 

The market cannot protect healthcare quality adequately on their own because lack of competition on their side no matter how minimal will make them focus on making more money and increasing their clientele base and hence start compromising on the quality they offer. Government involvement in whatever way keeps the market in line by making them work extra hard to provide better quality healthcare services and at not so expensive cost to avoid losing their clients to the government programs (Tanzi, 2011).  

Putting extra effort ensures that their quality remains on top, the charges reasonable to the majority of the individuals and hence the market is regulated and protected. The government involvement also ensures that those individuals who are locked out of private healthcare insurance because they cannot afford it still get medical coverage and hence it offers leverage which ensures fairness to all. This fairness would not be there if the market is left with no government intervention (Kovner, Knickman, & Jonas, 2011).