Question

1. Discuss controversies surrounding the development of the government’s role in providing, financing, and regulating health insurance and health services.  

Answer 1

1.

Government has a fair intention to reduce the cost of health care services and has increased its role in developing & regulating the industry w.r.t. health care insurance and health care deliveries.  Though, it has attracted few controversies. The first controversy is related to the arrangement of funds and financing that will be required to fund these government sponsored programs. It will bring extra burden on existing tax payers and future generations, burdened with the payment of additional debt. The second controversy is related to forcing all the employers to bring employees under the coverage, even if employees don't want it as they already own a private insurance. Not doing so, may cause penalties as well. Though, the huge number of coverage and subsequent inflow of patients are not being backed backed by the health care delivery infrastructure, cause quality of services to go down and controversy is created. The third controversy is the role of government being considered as against the spirit of the market forces and against the private property rights. Here, the government has started directing of what to do and what not do as well as pricing of the services. So, it is a controversial decision.