Public Authorities’ Role in the Healthcare System Essay

Introduction

The key stakeholders of the health care system include doctors, pharmaceutical companies, insurance firms, and the government. Direct marketing to patients is provided by insurance companies through health insurance plans and indirect sales via corporate or governmental intermediaries. Doctors who prescribe drugs to their patients are created and later marketed by pharmaceutical corporations. Usually, insurance or state medication benefit programs pay their expenses. Many firms provide their employees’ healthcare coverage with varying deductibles and copays. Doctors give medical treatment to people and deliver it. The government also supports the aged, disabled, and destitute people’s medical bills. Everyone in the circumstance has obligations and responsibilities.

Interlink between Power and Responsibilities

The different parties working in the medical scheme have complex relationships with one another. Pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are two public listed, publicly held companies that are stakeholders. Their main duty is to increase investor wealth. Since the main objective of employers is to make money, offering health insurance to workers is more of a bonus than a means of generating income for them (Karasneh et al., 2021). Unlike other stakeholders, doctors have particular patient-related fiduciary duties and responsibilities. Despite receiving payment for their services, doctors and patients have a sacred trust that transcends money. Patients are subject to certain rights, liabilities, and duties (Karasneh et al., 2021). Democratic administrations have promises and duties to their constituents, but how those commitments and duties are defined about healthcare shapes the American narrative.

The Insurance Sector

The rising costs and onerous limitations have made many people cannot obtain health insurance. Insurance companies still prioritize generating a profit, but the core of their offerings ought to change. It is getting harder to access quality healthcare because of budgetary constraints. The insurance sector needs to reconcile its responsibilities to shareholders and patients. Corporate quarterly shareholder reports push them to put profitability ahead of affordability (Karasneh et al., 2021). Most healthy persons are selected for insurance plans because of the severe limitations’ insurance companies apply to on past issues. Compared to individuals with chronic diseases, these people will not need costly surgeries as frequently. However, insurance companies’ activities are immoral since doing so turns healthcare into a profit enterprise and denies care to individuals who need it.

Pharmaceutical Organizations

Since many people use their products, pharmacies play an important role as part of the health sector. There are no price caps to prevent the cost of medicines from skyrocketing; as a result, prices will keep rising. It is incorrect that drug companies need to raise prices all the time to cover their costs of research (Karasneh et al., 2021). At the very least, pharmaceutical companies must be transparent and employ moral marketing strategies to ensure that customers can purchase their medications.

Physicians

Physicians need to control the industry’s rising costs while ensuring patients receive high-quality care. They must strike a balance between serving as the patients’ advocates and the gatekeepers for the insurance companies. Having primary care doctors’ act as gatekeepers was meant to save money on health care by stopping unnecessary tests and referrals. It might be prudent to reevaluate a primary care physician’s role in patient referrals if this needs to be fixed. Doctors are encouraged by the existing medical ethics to have fewer referrals each day and ensure they act as advocates for the well-being of patients (Lindgren et al., 2019). Additionally, doctors have obligations to their patients that are separate from those of insurance companies. A doctor owes it to his patients to do everything in his power to ensure their welfare. Thus, the concept of patient autonomy must be applied to balance the obligation of beneficence. Every patient is different and deserves the opportunity to choose what is best for themselves.

The Federal Government

The right to liberty and the right to equality are contrasted in the Declaration of Independence. The first is prioritized more by equalitarianism than the second is by libertarianism. Equalitarian view healthcare as a human right, whereas libertarians consider it a consumer good. Libertarianism is more attractive to people than equalitarianism, which stresses the importance of the government, since it highlights the importance of the free market. (Lindgren et al., 2019). The fundamental schism between these two opposed beliefs, which permeates the nursing culture, continues to be a barrier to national health reform.

Patients

It is morally required of patients to control their money and ensure they are healthy. It is evident that healthy living standards would lower living expenses. Equally, it would be challenging to create a program that pushed individuals to seek healthy lifestyles. (Lindgren et al., 2019). Although this tendency may be the consequence of physicians ordering several diagnostic tests for patients, even though some diagnostic tests are useless, doctors are frequently charged with overprescribing them. The most expensive treatments are only occasionally the best; as a result, the patient and doctor should work together to make sensible and cost-effective decisions.

Conclusion

The public’s interests in health ventures must be supported to ensure the right to live is supported. High-quality health care preserves the interests of the citizens and patches the gaps that regulate inefficiencies. The best way to keep the health care system is through formulating policies that foster adequate decision-making. The principles of health practice must be governed to ensure that patients get the best services. Healthcare coverage is a sensitive topic, but it can be managed by synthesizing the dimensions to create a win-win hierarchy for all practitioners.

References

Karasneh, R., Al-Azzam, S., Muflih, S., Soudah, O., Hawamdeh, S., & Khader, Y. (2021). Media’s effect on shaping knowledge, awareness risk perceptions and communication practices of pandemic COVID-19 among pharmacists. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 17(1), 1897–1902. Web.

Lindgren, I., Madsen, C. Ø. Hofmann, S., & Melin, U. (2019). Close encounters of the digital kind: A research agenda for the digitalization of Public Services. Government Information Quarterly, 36(3), 427–436. Web.