Please answer in short paragraphs - Assignment Example

 Healthcare Financing Health Indicators Health indicators can simply be defined as quantifiable characteristics of a population that researchers use as evidence to support the description of the health of said population. (Gapenski 2009). What happens is the researcher will use survey methods to obtain information about certain people in the population. This will be followed by use of statistical methods to generalize information to the entire population and finally use of statistical analysis to create a statement about the health of said population.

Life expectancy is an example of a common health indicator used by the government. Health indicators are often used to guide policies in public health.2. Health care financing options and their impactsAccording to Baker e al (2011), health care financing, broadly defined refers to a branch of finance which aids patients and other beneficiaries of health care to pay for both short and long-term health expenses. There exist various options as pertains to healthcare financing. Each option promises to have different impacts on the population being targeted.

Money lenders are offering patients credit options for paying for their healthcare costs. Americans who cannot afford private medical insurance have the option of shopping around for cheaper options. Credit options have people who rely on them get into debt while options involving debts have clients pay for their health care in advance. 3. Some reasons why the cost of health care is risingCleverly et al (2011) explains that one reason for the continued rise in the cost of healthcare is the rise in the cost of goods and services associated with healthcare.

These include workers and equipment. Another reason faced by hospitals is the total percentage of Medicare and Medicaid admissions. This is because neither of the two programs fully reimburses the cost of care. In a bid to reduce some of these costs, the current financing options, especially those offered by the government should be revisited. Regulation should also be put in place to counter the rising cost of goods and services used in healthcare. 4. The reason for failure of healthcare regulationFailure of health care regulation has been largely attributed to the architecture of the methods of regulations.

Gaps in regulatory design have been seen. Some basic regulatory functions may fail to be assigned to a regulatory body while others may not be underwritten by law. Research in India showed that weakness in the design of regulatory methods in the above-mentioned ways is the reason why regulation has failed. This is according to Gapenski (2009).References