Health economics, assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Health economics, - Assignment Example This impacts negatively on the poor who have no access to Medicaid or any form of health insurance. 3. a) Indemnity health plans have higher premiums than HMOs due to two reasons: demographics and health status. Indemnity plans have more older enrollees compared to HMOs. Secondly, older people suffering from a terminal illness are more likely to join indemnity than HMO (Altman et al, 2003). Alterman et al (2003) show this by analyzing the data collected from the two health plans. b) The weaknesses of this argument include the assumptions that HMOs negotiate for lower premiums and that they discourage sick people from enrolling with them. It is also taken for granted that HMOs offer lower intensity of treatment. 5. a) Ellis and McGuire make various recommendations on predictability and predictiveness. They state that the problem of rationing could be eliminated by identifying the problematic areas that inhibit complementarity of improving the quality of care. They suggest that payment systems should be designed for plans that attempt to neutralize incentives to ration some services more tightly than others (Ellis & MacGuire, 2007). 6. a) Mortality may decrease during recession because people lead healthier lifestyles during hard economic times than when there is abundance. During recession, unhealthy lifestyles such as excessive smoking and drinking and consumption of junk food go down due to lack of sufficient finances among people. Consequently, mortality rates reduce. c) This is because they have huge macroeconomic effects for groups of people such as heavy smokers and the physically inactive. There are numerous indirect changes, such as changes in sleep that accompany economic fluctuations. Therefore, economic downturns affect much more than just the macroeconomic status of individuals and the country. e) Getting Congress to lobby for the provision of affordable healthcare to all. It would enable people who cannot afford