How to solve the Cost Crisis in Health Care - Essay Example

HOW TO SOLVE THE COST CRISIS IN HEALTH CARE HOW TO SOLVE THE COST CRISIS IN HEALTH CARE Kaplan and Porter find it a very worrying situation that meaningful cost reduction cannot be done in the current health system. The two blame the situation on flaws in the current system, which makes it impossible to measure costs accurately at the individual and medical condition levels. Indeed cost has been noted to be an important variable in the determinants of a good healthcare system. This is because according to Ralph & Taylor (2005), how much it costs a person to access healthcare plays an important role of answering the question of whether a person will seek health care at all and if the person does, whether the person will get quality healthcare.

As far as the issue of measuring the cost of healthcare is concerned, the position taken by Kaplan and Porter will be agreed with since knowledge of the cost makes it possible to determine whether a person is getting value for money from healthcare expenditure (Harris & Lenox, 2013).In its current form, the United States healthcare system can be said to be suffering from a cost crisis that consists of both a system that is wrongly measured and one that is overly burdened on service users. In the opinion of Moran (2013) however, the best way to tackle the issue of cost crisis is to approach it from a more systematic perspective where the real quantum of cost put into the system can be found.

From this position, the argument of Kaplan and Porter on the need for healthcare cost to experience cost reduction interventions will be agreed with. But as the authors themselves noted, it will be more important to know the real value of cost involved in healthcare delivery. This is because any form of rush to drastically reducing cost in the system may only be a way the whole country may be digging its own whole towards the reception of a ill-funded and thus a poor healthcare system (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne, 2013)ReferencesGinter, P.M., Duncan, W.J. and Swayne, L.E (2013). The Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations, New York: Jossey-BassHarris, J.D. & Lenox, M.J. (2013).

The Strategists Toolkit. New York: Darden Business PublishingKaplan, R. S., and Porter M. E. (2011). "How to Solve the Cost Crisis in Health Care." Harvard Business Review 89(9): 47–64.Moran F. (2013). Glossary of Fitness and Health Terms. Texas: Frank Moran.Ralph, S. S. & Taylor, C. M. (2005). Sparks and Taylors nursing diagnosis reference manual (6th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Publication.