The effect of mandated health insurance benefits on the market for labour if the workers do not place any value on these benefits and when they fully value the benefits. In the situation where the workers do not place value in the mandated health insurance benefits, the relationship between employees and employers will significantly change. This is because workers will not be willing to contribute towards the mandated insurance scheme. Moreover, employees may present inaccurate information regarding the size of their family, their income and other household information (Kasper, Riley, McCombs and Stevenson, 2009). Economically, mandated health insurance benefits are likely to reduce profits of businesses, reduce wages of workers, and increase the unemployment rate. However, in the situation where employers fully value the benefits of mandated health insurance, programs are likely to improve the health condition of the entire society significantly. This means that essentially a desirable health insurance program will have a noticeable impact on the entire economy.
Five Policies for Medicare and Their Goals
The Medicare program has various policies that are aimed at addressing various objects and goals. Initially, there is the Insurance policy that targets ensuring that every members of the society have an access to a full insurance cover especially against emerging health complications. Secondly, the travel insurance policy is vital in ensuring that individuals are protected from accident and other bad encounters while travelling. Alternatively, Life insurance policy targets ensuring that Americans are effectively protected from any form of health complication. Another important policy of Medicate includes the dental insurance that covers dental complications that challenge Americans. Finally, the Medicare supplementary insurance policy ensures that all America have an access to medical care in all healthcare institutions.
The Relationship between Community Rating and Economic Efficiency
Community rating entails insurance rating structures that have limited premium rates among the insured. In contrast, economic efficiency is a term that is used to discuss products in microeconomics (Jacobs and Rapoport, 2004). Based on the available information, there exist a close relationship between community rating and economic efficiency. Community rating is economically efficient when it is implemented at a lower and sustainable cost. In this context, economists emphasize the need of maintaining the community rating that is at reduced prices to meet the interests of all beneficiaries. Better community rating results to improved economic efficiency. On the other hand, poor managed community-rating results to economic inefficiency.
The problem presented by selection bias for research on the effects of HMOs
The selection bias in research on the effect of HMOs has regrettable level of impacts on the results of the research. In most cases, selection bias results into inaccurate and inappropriate findings. Incorrect findings result to the adoption of less effective and unviable policies and regulations. In addition, selection biases interfere with the selection of choice of health status measure, reporting methods, sampling process, and the analysis method. This reduces the quality of the health services that are offered to the community. Furthermore, biases in the selection process result to conflicting findings on the relationship between market penetration and HMO selection. Therefore, in order to acquire the most effective results on the effects of HMOs, the knowledge of the bias that interfere with result findings is essential (Brown, 2009). This could minimize adoption of unpractical strategies thus reducing wastage of resources.
References
Brown, R. (2009). Biased Selection in the Medicare Competition Demonstrations, Report Prepared for the Health Care Financing Administration. Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research.
Jacobs, P. & Rapoport, J. (2004). The Economics of Health and Medical Care. (5th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Kasper J., Riley G., McCombs J., Stevenson M. (2009). Beneficiary Selection, Use, and Charges in Two Medicare Capitation Demonstrations. Health Care Financing Review, 10(1):37–49.
