PUBH6003: Health Systems and Economics Assessment Answer

Part A

Introduction

The main purpose of the report is to examine and study the health financing policies, along with its programs in Australia. Australia's population is 2.57 crores, according to statistics of 2022, there are about 5 disease groups that lead to the most burden, these are neurological conditions or disorders, cancer, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal condition, and mental health condition. There are several indicators of disease in Australia, and these are prevalence, attack rate (AR), and incidence rate. When the prevalence of disease in Australia is about 47%, this implies that about 47% of Australians are diagnosed with more than one chronic condition (Ivanková et al., 2019). The prevalence rate of chronic conditions increases with age. The heart attack rate in Australia is high. About 1 in 9 adults, which is 11%, have experienced heart attacks. In the year 2020, about 56,000 people who are aged 25 experienced acute coronary events either in the form of unstable angina or heart attack. The incidence rate is about 15.1 to 51, and men are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions. Some of the key steps adopted by Australia so as to acheive health goals are: the Australians are admitted to public hospital and they are guarenteed free access and fee-free treatment. All the hospitals are managed by Australian Government and other territory government. The report will examine the health financing policy and how it will assist to achieve the health system goal (Hasan et al., 2022).

The health care financing of Australia is like a universal health insurance program, and it is financed with the help of general tax revenue and government levy. The services are accessed in the health care system with the help of state, local and federal governments. The services which access through the private system. This system is usually funded by a combination of private entities and government. It also includes private health insurance and premium, and private health organizations are also present. The company which funds the Australian healthcare system is Medicare, it is low-cost access for all Australians. There are several private health insurance which provides choice out of the public system. Some of the common services are medical services, medicines, and public hospitals. The healthcare budget of Australia in terms of healthcare is estimated to be around $105.8 billion, and this represents about 16.8% of the Australian government (Braithwaite et al., 2017).

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.statista.com%2Fstatistics%2F317669%2Fhealthcare-expenditure-in-the-united-kingdom%2F&psig=AOvVaw0PWp9_vHyEiZEGkeyIoE4r&ust=1682589087141000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBEQjRxqFwoTCMjqjPmix_4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/topics/health-care-expenditures.htm

SS

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/875127/australia-gross-value-added-health-care-and-social-assistance-industry/

In Australia, total health expenditure has increased by 3.3% in 2022-23 and it reached about $238.1 billion. The amount is so high because expenditure on health care is high. This implies that the healthcare system needs to be improved. The local healthcare system of the UK and Australia should be compared, UK residents are mainly entitled to some restricted health services from Medicare, for all the necessary treatment while one is visiting Australia. Australia helps and works towards achieving substantially and it also helps to achieve some better outcomes than the UK. Both the UK and Australian healthcare system is based on the ideology of an accessible and publicly funded healthcare system for their residents. The UK and Australia both have achieved this goal, and it also contributes to why immigration destinations are changing (Gavurova et al., 2021).

 The conceptual framework which is used is from The World Health Report 2000 framework (WHO 2000). There are three pillars which are used and these three pillars are: first is the proposed objective for health financing policy, second pillar is, a framework for descriptive analysis of health reform and system. The third and last pillar is fiscal constraints and some contextual factors. All these pillars are important and they help in the financing system (Witter et al., 2019).

The selected country which is the UK consists of a large series of publicly funded healthcare systems in the UK. The UK parliament legislates for England's NHS and all other legislation is also taken into account. The revenue collection for the UK in the healthcare segment is projected to reach about USA$ 1,857 m in 2023. From the year 2012-2021, there are several advancements made like the central governmet provided finance and this was use for the medical care of people. The revenue is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of about 6.29%, and the projected market volume is expected to be around US$2,370 by about 2027. In the UK the pooling of funds is usually done and generally paid by taxation. However, the UK also has some private health care sectors, in this health care is acquired using some private health insurance. It is also typically funded as a part of employer funds in the healthcare scheme, this is directly paid to the customer. Purchasing health care services is important for high delivery of good quality goods and the solutions are presented at a good price (Sastry et al., 2022). In the USA, large sum of money was spend from 2012-2020, there was an increase from 2.7% to about 10.3%. This increase because the government has become active and they now recognise the importance of health care.

As all these steps are adopted the House of Common Health Committee has warned that the health of all the groups is improving and over the last 10 years the health inequalities have also been addressed. However, still, the social class gap has widened and the health of the rich is improving at a much quicker range (Rana et al., 2020). Some major advances are observed in technology, medicine, health technology, food, infrastructure, and planning.

Some strategies are adopted to improve health financing sub-functions for the UK and these are: the government should develop and also implement health financing strategies. It also reflects and contextualizes the other healthcare policies which are present. Three key functions need to be adopted and these are a collection of revenue, resource pooling, and purchasing of the services (González et al., 2021). The comparision will be done on the basis of 3 indicators which are described above.

Conclusion

From the above essay, it can be easily concluded that Australia has achieved better healthcare outcomes than the UK. The number of opportunities in Australia is high, however, the pay is not that good. In the UK the resource and the fund distribution is not done in an efficient and relevant manner.

References

Braithwaite, J., Hibbert, P., Blakely, B., Plumb, J., Hannaford, N., Long, J.

C., & Marks, D. (2017). Health system frameworks and performance indicators in eight countries: A comparative international analysis. SAGE Open Medicine, 5, 2050312116686516. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312116686516s

Gavurova, B., Kocisova, K., & Sopko, J. (2021). Health system efficiency in OECD countries: Dynamic network DEA approach. Health Economics Review, 11(1), 40. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-021-00337-9

González, P.A., Gutiérrez, L.L., Oyanedel, J.C., & Sánchez-Rodríguez, H. (2021). Attitudes toward health systems financing in Chile. Inquiry : A Journal of Medical Care Organization, Provision and Financing, 58, 469580211020187. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580211020187

Hasan, F., Rannaware, A., & Choudhari, S.G. (2022). Comparison of public health investments of various countries amid a need for greater transparency: A narrative review. Cureus, 14(9), e29687. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29687

Ivanková, V., Kotulič, R., Gonos, J., & Rigelský, M. (2019). Health care financing systems and their effectiveness: An empirical study of OECD Countries. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(20), 3839. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16203839

M V, M.K., Sastry, N. K.B., Moonesar, I.A., & Rao, A. (2022). Predicting universal healthcare through health financial management for sustainable development in BRICS, GCC, and AUKUS Economic Blocks. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 5, 887225. https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2022.887225

Rana, R.H., Alam, K., & Gow, J. (2020). Selection of private or public hospital care: Examining the care-seeking behaviour of patients with private health insurance. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 380. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05253-y

Witter, S., Anderson, I., Annear, P., Awosusi, A., Bhandari, N.N., Brikci, N., Binachon, B., Chanturidze, T., Gilbert, K., Jensen, C., Lievens, T., McPake, B., Raichowdhury, S., & Jones, A. (2019). What, why and how do health systems learn from one another? Insights from eight low- and middle-income country case studies. Health Research Policy and Systems, 17(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-018-0410-1 

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