Everybody Wins with Affordable Health Care
Affordable health care may seem like it only benefits patients and consumers, with healthcare providers, governments and insurance firms having to foot the bill, so to speak. In reality, however, providing access to affordable health care benefits everyone—from the patient and their family, to their doctors and hospital staff, to even the patient’s employer. In fact, it’s not that big of a stretch to consider that the entire economy could benefit from affordable health care for everyone.
It’s not like making health care affordable is impossible or even difficult. There are many ways to get healthcare costs down, with one of the biggest ones involving the use of artificial intelligence solutions for the healthcare industry.
AI solutions, when employedcorrectly, can not only help hospitals and healthcare providers preventcostly wastage and unnecessary spending but also help insurance firms detect and prevent instances of healthcare fraud. This is done by the AI solution quickly analyzing large amounts of data provided by healthcare organizations. This harnessing of data is also made possible by advanced database replication solutions, which simplify the movement of such huge amounts of data while also allowing the real-time analysis of the information gathered. From there,linksand patterns within those data are found that could yield unexpected but valuable insights.
These insights can then be used for many aspects ofhealthcare, from detectingwastage in hospital operations to figuring out the optimal treatment path for specific patients. Obviously, such insights can translate to lower healthcare costs.
But just how does everyone—not just the patients—benefit from affordable healthcare? Here are some concrete examples.
It lets families keep more of their income, allowing them to spend more and thus drive the economy
To many families all over the world, having a loved one or family member be treated for a major illness or condition may not only result in years of debt but also outright bankruptcy. As such, the family’s spending will drop drastically, as well as force them to rely on government assistance just to survive. This results in less demand for products and services, as well as more taxpayer money going towards alleviating the financial burden for these families.
By having access to affordable health care, families can easily bounce back from any major health crisis or emergency. They can continue spending for their daily needs and desires while also paying for their medical bills—they’re not forced to minimize their expenses in order to survive. This,of course, has the net effect of their money being put back into the system to pay for products and services, thus keeping the economy going.
It helps lower unemployment
Affordable health care also has a net effect when it comes to unemployment. As healthcare costs fall, so too will the health insurance payments that employers need to pay in order to keep their employees insured. As such, they are financially empowered to add more jobs and hire more employees for their business. This obviously results in a decrease in employment and a boost in the economy due to more salaries being paid and more services being handed out.
Economic research efforts have also shown that in the long term, the savings made from the lower health insurance premiums are passed on to the employees in the form of higher wages and better benefits. This helps motivate employees to work harder and companies to become more competitive – which again results in the economy being driven forward.
It improves population health and employee productivity
When healthcare costs are too high or too prohibitive, the common working family’s usual resort when it comes to medical issues or conditions is to simply self-medicate or even ignore symptoms outright until more serious ones make themselves known. This results in not only a population that is almost always in poor health, but millions of dollars in lost revenue due to workers simply being too unhealthy or sick to report to work. Fear and concern over the well-being of their families as well as themselves could also result in loss of productivity due to an inability to focus or perform their work duties efficiently.
With affordable health care, working class families will no longer have to endure their conditions or sicknesses simply because they fear the expense of being treated. Individuals with minor illnesses will recover quicker while those with major or life-threatening illnesses can have their diagnosis much sooner, and thus raise their chances of having their condition treated completely. The end result here is a healthier population and a workforce that is more productive, more efficient and more driven to succeed—all good things for the economy.
Conclusion:
Affordable healthcare benefits everyone, not just the patients or consumers that have to pay less to get treated for their conditions. As a country’s population becomes more empowered to receive the proper healthcare they need, they not only become healthier as a whole but also become a more efficient and reliable workforce. This in turn drives companies to become more competitive and as such achieves a bolstering effect on the economy.