Assignment:
Response Post to classmate below: Describe the role of public health and preventive medicine in affecting demand. Consider the role of ethics in the payment-demand-price of healthcare.
Public Health and Demand-Crawford
The Big Business of Dialysis Care article was very interesting, the increasing numbers of patients from forty years ago until now is very alarming because that means the number of diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic diseases are rising in the United States. The price of dialysis care a year is $88,000, which increased over the past years and also is more than sixty percent of the average U.S. household income a year.
From how expensive it has been and how people are still wanting the treatment regardless of the expensive price, that is called inelastic demand. Inelastic demand, means the demand percentage changes a slightly compared to the price which can be an immense change. This treatment is a need and is very effective in dropping around 36% of mortality rates between the years 2001 to 2013.
This was a great article about dialysis, hopefully we can start realizing to live more of a healthy lifestyle so we can avoid increasing the expensive dialysis rates in America. Another example of inelastic demand is outpatient healthcare in developing countries especially in rural India, which price can increase with fees like transportation, etc. from the elderly/ill trying to get to the hospital to get treatment.
This means that the demand affects the price of care because the price increases but the payment model does not affect the demand because people need the treatment from the outpatient healthcare.
References:
1. The Big Business of Dialysis Care. NEJM Catalyst. https://catalyst.nejm.org/the-big-business-of-dialysis-care/. Published June 9, 2016.
2. Henderson JW. Health economics and policy. Australia: Cengage Learning; 2014.
3. Sarma, S. (2009). Demand for outpatient healthcare. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 7(4), 265-277.