Chapter 3 blog: The Role of Governemnt in a Market Economy
Showdown over private health care expected this week in Manitoba
Steve Lambert, Canadian Press
Published: Sunday, December 11, 2005
This article from the Calgary Herald is about battle between public and private health care in Canada. It tells of a woman from Manitoba in need of magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) scan for her knees. She was told that she had to wait for three months for the scan in the public health care system, but in the private health care system, she only needed to wait a maximum of 48 hours from the moment she registered. However, the shortened waiting time came at a cost of nearly $700 and a trip to Calgary. Her knees were really in need of that scan, thus she and her husband opted to go with the private
health care system. The woman asked the Manitoba Health department to reimburse her for the cost of the scan but the department refused, saying that the MRI service is available in Manitoba.
Relation to Chapter 3
Chapter 3 relates the intervention of the government in the economy. Health care is one of the involvements by the government in our economy. They involve because of various reasons. Some of the reasons are because of the imperfection of the economy, third party effects, unmet public goods, unequal distribution of income, and unimmune to fluctuations in the economy. The governemnt is involved in our health care system of firstly, imperfection of the economy. Health care is an essential, therefore it is
unadvantagous for the consumers if competitions get together to set the price and divide the profit among themselves. The governemnt's involvement in the system helps to keep the price affordable for all, as opposed to only available to the rich. Another reason of the governemnt's participation is because of third party effects. A
human being can only function properly if he/she is healthy. If one is always sick and cannot work, he/she would live on social assistance. Thus, there's fewer people to work the jobs and the governemnt have to pay the sick people. The governement's involvement ensures all to be healthy and hearty to work, therefore they won't have to live on the government's money.
Steve Lambert, Canadian Press
Published: Sunday, December 11, 2005
This article from the Calgary Herald is about battle between public and private health care in Canada. It tells of a woman from Manitoba in need of magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) scan for her knees. She was told that she had to wait for three months for the scan in the public health care system, but in the private health care system, she only needed to wait a maximum of 48 hours from the moment she registered. However, the shortened waiting time came at a cost of nearly $700 and a trip to Calgary. Her knees were really in need of that scan, thus she and her husband opted to go with the private
health care system. The woman asked the Manitoba Health department to reimburse her for the cost of the scan but the department refused, saying that the MRI service is available in Manitoba.
Relation to Chapter 3
Chapter 3 relates the intervention of the government in the economy. Health care is one of the involvements by the government in our economy. They involve because of various reasons. Some of the reasons are because of the imperfection of the economy, third party effects, unmet public goods, unequal distribution of income, and unimmune to fluctuations in the economy. The governemnt is involved in our health care system of firstly, imperfection of the economy. Health care is an essential, therefore it is
unadvantagous for the consumers if competitions get together to set the price and divide the profit among themselves. The governemnt's involvement in the system helps to keep the price affordable for all, as opposed to only available to the rich. Another reason of the governemnt's participation is because of third party effects. A
human being can only function properly if he/she is healthy. If one is always sick and cannot work, he/she would live on social assistance. Thus, there's fewer people to work the jobs and the governemnt have to pay the sick people. The governement's involvement ensures all to be healthy and hearty to work, therefore they won't have to live on the government's money.
posted by Ben Wong @ 11:11 PM
2 Comments:
At 12:04 AM,
Charlie said…
Although government involvement does provide equal access to medical services, it also generates an increasingly long wait list for essential diagnostical procedures and operations. I beleive it's important to have private clinics available to the public in addition to the ones provided by the government. This way, for the more extreme cases where immediate scans or surgery is needed, the wait list won't be too much of an issue.
However, in order to dodge the waitlist problem, cost is going to become a huge factor. Therefore, we have a conundrum. It's impossible to have equal access without having incredibly long, and sometimes fatal, wait times.
At 4:43 PM,
David Bach said…
good summary but connections from the article to the text need to be clearer - you really haven't stated how there is a market failure and really haven't identified the third party effects. what difference does it make if the mri is done in manitoba or in alberta - manitoba still has to pay someone - are private mri's much more expensive than public one's? - 8/10
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