Health Policy Values - Essay Example

This paper intends to describe my personal values and believes in health care policy. Value is a term that describes the worthiness of something. In health care, value would describe the extent to which people need the service and its benefit to them. Value dictates cost incurred in acquiring healthcare services (Marmor, et.al. 2005). I believe that health care policies should address cost in relation to outcome. The question at this point would be “does the cost commensurate to the value of health care in terms of satisfaction of patient’s needs, access to service or profitability to the healthcare provider.

I strongly feel cost incurred in healthcare institutions do not cater for the value provided in terms of service out comes. Cost measures usually address factors, which would lead to reduction of current costs involved in healthcare delivery (The Federation's Pages). This means that cost must address total care that a patient acquires while in health facility. In addition, cost reduction approaches must address factors such as satisfactory services, efficiency, and effectiveness. In my opinion, cost incurred in health does not match the kind of service that people receive.

This means that an attempt to reduce cost should be in the pipeline. It is apparent that health care encompasses many providers who offer services at different rates. However, the most important issue in health is the quality of service that these providers offer (Porter, 2010). I believe that a high quality service would cost more because the patient would need an extra attention, which calls for more costs. For instance, a patient at a care unit should get value for the costs he or she has incurred.

Experts believe that quality delivered depend on the value of an individuals money. I believe that quality should be a factor that drives the health care providers. Unfortunately, this is not the case in some instances. Many patients fail to get quality services because of myriad arguments, which surround the health care sector. In my opinion, quality and cost are inseparable in the health sector. In this regard, health care policies must address quality and cost as factors that influence value of health care.

Some people feel that when health care provision does not meet the patient demand, then quality provided is low. I believe that quality in health care sector can exist even if the health care provider has met the demand of the patient. Health experts have observed that health provision involve several stakeholders, which include physicians, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and others. Since the sector involves numerous units, inefficiency is likely to crop. This attracts proper measures, which intend to address value in terms of patient demand and cost incurred.

I believe that patient requirement forms that foundation of measuring value in primary or preventive care. When patients of similar needs fail to achieve the requirement for their need it would be apparent that value is absent in the health sector. For example, primary stages of healthcare provision offer advisory and preventive services, which prevent causes or reoccurrence of similar conditions. It is arguable that when this group of patients fails to achieve the core services at this level it would be apparent that value does not exists.

Social issues such as insurance policies, poverty influence provision of health care. I believe