Part A
Education is one of the major concerns that any government addresses. The world nations embrace education as the key strategy towards attaining economic growth and development. Politicians have advocated for a constant funding to the higher institutions hence low fees to enable high standards of education. This is an aim to improve its accessibility as a way of enhancing skills in the society and more so increase innovation, science, and technology (Levin, 2005).
In a case where the government maintains a constant university funding, the demand for higher education increases in the country. The initial equilibrium price for education will decrease due to the compensation offered by the government. If the facilities are constant, supply of education will be outgrown by the growth of demand for the cheap program (Arnold, 2011). This will lead to conditions of very low ratio of lecturers as compared to the student population. The existing facilities get congested and inadequate in the institutions. The proportion supplemented by the government will require to be increased to maintain the low education fees. The number of students enrolled in the system grows immensely and will require an increase in funding by the government. For instance, in a developing country like Kenya, free education increased the student population causing inadequacy of facilities.
In this case, the education is equally accessible to many people in the country. However, it is worth noting that the quality will be compromised due to inadequate facilities. The increased demand for education bids the cost of education up since more funding is required to expand the facility base (Levin, 2005). Still on Kenya, the government expenditure hiked to a great percentage with education budget being the highest. The number of students in middle level colleges and universities is very high in that African country.
Part B
The influenza vaccine commonly known as Flu shot is a medical intervention to protect people from the seasonal influenza bacteria. The vaccine is recommended in the US to everyone above 6 months, in the form of a nasal spray or a shot. The rationale for this vaccine is an intervention to prevent more infections that are serious. The government takes an initiative to supply the vaccine to all health centers in US especially during the winter season (Couch, 2008).
The active participation of the government in supplying the vaccine qualifies the service to be public good. A product or a service becomes public good if there is very little marginal cost involved in attaining it. In addition, getting the flu shot does not exclude any other additional citizens from being vaccinated. The vaccine, however, is not a pure public good since other medical institutions offer the vaccination service. The government also offers the service at a highly subsidized cost as compared to the non-governmental medical institutions. The government initiative to make the vaccination service against the influenza virus is due to its primary role to oversee the health of the nation (Couch, 2008).
The flu shot has great benefit to the US citizens and the economic system. During the winter season, the rate of infection by the influenza virus is very high due to extreme cold. In this season, cases of employee illness increase in various corporations. The business operations experience great challenge when the employees suffer serious illnesses emanating from the influenza flu. This means reduced human resource in the economic system, hence a slowdown in growth (Kronenfeld, 1997)
In connection to that, it is evident how flu shot is very beneficial to the economic growth. The vaccination helps prevent a reduction in economic operations and other economic operations owing to flu in the cold season. It cuts down the expenditure on medication and reduces waste of time allocated to seek medical attention; therefore, the time resource and human capital are not compromised in production.
The government participates in this service by sensitizing the population about the importance of the vaccination. It also provides the medication at subsidized cost at all public medical centers to people above 6 months age (Kronenfeld, 1997).
The private sector would provide the vaccination services inefficiently due to reasons of market failure. Private sectors are profit oriented; therefore, it means he cost of flu shot in private medical institutions would very high. The accessibility of this service to low income population would be a problem. Reduced access to such a crucial preventive health care make the nation less productive due to influenza caused illnesses.
The government should take an active move to make such airborne disease treatment services purely public good to ensure equal accessibility by its citizens, irrespective of income level. It is imperative that the quantity of vaccination be increased in the country through a government initiative to offer incentives to research and manufacturers to produce more of the medication. In a bid to make the service a pure public good, the government should compensate the costs of obtaining the vaccine by private medical centers to make it a free service. An initiative to supply the vaccine to all health centers free of charge prior to the winter season would be quite effective to ensure efficient quantity of vaccines in the country (Kronenfeld, 1997).
Health services can be partly private or public good due to the preferences of various economic classes. A clear example of public good is a security service that only the government has the mandate to provide to all its citizens irrespective of any human or geographical difference. There is no payment charged for the government security services in a country (Arnold, 2011).
A private good is one where the consumption depends on the income and purchase power. For instance, a vehicle is a private good since for one to enjoy the product there is much spending. There is marginal cost for every individual who purchase a vehicle. The use of a vehicle has excludability characteristics compared to public good like security (Pindyck & Rubinfeld, 2005).
References
Arnold, R. A. (2011). Principles of microeconomics (10th International ed.). Australia: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Couch, R. (2008). Seasonal Inactivated Influenza Virus Vaccines. Vaccine, 26 (supplement 4), D5-D9.
Kronenfeld, J. J. (1997). The changing federal role in U.S. health care policy. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Levin, B. R. (2005). Governing education. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press.
Pindyck, R. S., & Rubinfeld, D. L. (2005). Microeconomics (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
