Competitions on Health and Medical Care
Competition ensures the provision of better products and services to satisfy the needs of customers (Rivers and Glover, 2013) (Martins, n.d.). Traditional competition in health care involves one or more elements (e.g. price, quality, convenience, and superior products or services) (Rivers and Glovers, 2013) (Martins, n.d.). A key role of competition in health care is the potential to provide a mechanism for reducing health care costs (Rivers and Glover, 2013) (Martins, n.d.).
Healthcare is one of the most important needs of human beings (Martins, n.d.). This statement is true because if man does not have excellent health, he cannot give his full potential (Martins, n.d.). Healthcare can be said to be all about providing medical services, products and equipment to extend, protect and increase the quality of human lives (Martins, n.d.). One threat to this industry of Medicare and Health is simply people gaining knowledge of living healthier lives by eating better (‘Cancer Prevention Diet: Lower Your Risk with Cancer-Fighting Foods’, 2015). How could the world of medical care survive if people simply just ate right? If people are healthy, there is no need for medical care (Fontaine, English, & Williams, 2014). One of the biggest cases in the world of medical care and health is the interest in healthy food. It is said that most diseases can be avoided with a
As Americans we are fortunate to have such an excellent healthcare system and medical care system. We are also fortunate to be educated as to how to live our lives and the outcome of the choices we make. It is by choice to either choose the rout of medications, annual doctor visits and prescriptions, or maintaining a disciplined life of eating foods that create optimal health benefits. Let your food be your medicine, and have your medicine be your
In his essay “The American Paradox”, Michael Pollan illustrates his conclusion that Americans who focus on nutrition have a higher probability of decreasing their well-being. Pollan defines the American paradox as “a notably unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthily.” For most of our human history, our parents and culture have influenced our diet. However, today the idea of what to eat has been based on the opinions of scientists, food markets, and nutritionists. I agree with Pollan’s argument that being preoccupied with what we eat makes us unhealthy, however, we need a balance and a sense of responsibility in what we eat.
Competitive advantage matters greatly to those responsible for the management of healthcare institutions. Together with rapidly escalating healthcare costs, increasingly complex medical technologies, and growing regulatory and legal pressures, healthcare organizations face a critical need to improve the quality of care at reduced costs (Cu...
2. The twin problems of the health care industry as viewed by society are cost and access. First of all, the cost of getting health care is very high and it is getting higher each day. This has been mostly caused by the combination of high cost and an increase in quantity of services provided to the communities. The other problem involves access to health care. American enjoy limited or no access to health care. Many efforts have been done to reform this, but still but still many people are left without access to the care. These two problems are related due to the fact that if the health care industry gets to high off course people no longer will be able to have any access to it. The higher prices are, the lower access people have to it.
When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.
Nutrition and health have become more popular in today 's society. Our generation is becoming more and more indebted to the idea of being healthy and eating nutritious meals. However, in “The American Paradox,” by Michael Pollan he argues that our unhealthy population is preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy than their actual health. He also mentions the food industry, nutrition science and how culture affects the way we eat and make food choices. While Pollan is right about all these factor that affect our eating habits, there is more to it than that. Convenience, affordability and social influence also affects our food choices making them inadequate.
The population in the United States as of 2009 was 307,006,550 the younger population is projected to slightly increase and eventually plateau though the older population has been steadily increasing and projected to continue on an upward trend (Vincent & Velkoff, 2010). The lack of a healthier diet is something that has been highlighted in the media for the past decade and more often than not we are seeing the effects of overindulging and the consumption of highl...
The United States health care system is one of the most expensive systems in the world yet it is known as being unorganized and chaotic in comparison to other countries (Barton, 2010). This factor is attributed to numerous characteristics that define what the U.S. system is comprised of. Two of the major indications are imperfect market conditions and the demand for new technology (Barton, 2010). The health care system has been described as a free market in
The documentary, Forks Over Knives, examines the controversial idea that our society’s typical dietary habits are to blame for many of today's most serious health issues. From the video, we learn that diseases which can be caused, or exacerbated by, poor dietary habits include heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and hypertension. The documentary explains that the food we eat on a regular basis does not contain the proper nutrition that our bodies truly need to function at their most optimal and healthful level. Caldwell Esselstyn and Colin Campbell both support the idea that eating a strictly plant-based diet is the most supportive and ideal way to obtain the nutrients necessary to living a life free of disease. In particular, Caldwell Esselstyn asserts that those who are already plagued with disease can reverse the damage and symptoms simply by eating a plant-based diet.
Many people in America, from toddlers to the elderly, have shown numerous signs of bad health. People have the desire to keep on eating due to more, new things being merchandised as “new and improved items” from the producers. For example, nowadays, people are eating pure junk that they find satisfying on the grocery food shelf. As, stated by Michael Pollan, in his article, “Eat Food: Food Defined” he affirmed that “real food is the type of things that our
If an American living in our modern world was asked the following question, “How can one live a healthier life?”, the individual would probably respond with one of the following responses: “With a strict diet consisting of smaller portions, or restricting certain types of food and number of calories, along with exercising excessively every day.” Or one may even mention that the food pyramid should be followed, as they were taught from an early age, that it is a nutritional guideline on how human beings should be eating in order to live a healthy life, along with maintaining an ideal weight. The food
The poor food choices that men and women make is the cause of many illnesses, disease and chronic health conditions. Men and women generally have different thoughts and choices on the topic of healthy food. People’s bad health may be genetically occurred or their exposure to their past nutritional education was not helpful, but their bad health is primarily based upon the poor choices that the individuals choose in daily life.
In the book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan explores the relationship between nutrition and the Western diet, claiming that the answer to healthy eating is simply to “eat food”.
It became so clear that junk foods lead to a punch of catastrophic diseases like obesity, type two diabetes, vascular diseases and cardiac disorders. Those kinds of diseases cost more than $150 billion annually, just to diagnose, treat people who suffer from them. That disease is chronic and leads to many health-related issues, for example, obesity considers a risk factor for type two diabetes, and high blood pressure, joint disorders and many others (The Denver Post 2012). The key of preventing many chronic problems is nutrition. Low income plays an important role of limiting most people to buy and eat a healthy diet and in the other hand, it is easy for people budgets to purchase junk foods. So controlling the prices of healthy foods to be suitable for all people make good nutrition available for everyone. Adequate diets mean decreasing the epidemic of those serious diseases, and stopping the spread and break the bad sequences that may happen. Long-term exposure to junk foods that are full with chemicals like additives, preservatives have led to chronic illnesses difficult to treat. Also, the chemical added to junk foods are tasted unique and made millions of people becoming addicted to them and are available everywhere for example in restaurants, cafes, lunchrooms (The Denver Post
Some economists suggest that the market for healthcare is different from other competitive industries and therefore cannot act the same way. In principles, we learn the basic assumptions of a competitive market, (1) goods offered for sale are homogenous, (2) there must be many buyers and sellers so that each has a negligible impact on the market price and (3) For markets to work efficiently there can be no significant information failure affecting the decisions of the producers and consumers. In perfect competition, product’s must be homogeneous which means that goods that individual producers cannot alter or differentiate to collect a higher price. Health care is a heterogeneous product because the patient can experience a range of outcomes. There is an ongoing battle between hospitals and insurance companies. In theory, insurance companies negotiate with hospitals for a reduced rate. One of my favorites quotes I stumbled upon is from economist Uwe Reinhardt in regards to Obama and Obamacare “I wish I had a half hour with him to explain it to him. If you pit hundreds of little insurers against each other, what makes any one think that each of them has enough market clout to bargain successfully with a hospital? So I don 't think this public health plan, adding yet one more competitor, is going to bring costs down at
Public health consists of organized efforts to improve the health of populations, with the goal to reduce disease and improve health in a population; society’s desire and specific efforts to improve health and wellbeing of the total population, relying on the government, private sector, and the public, by focusing on the determents of population health.1 One of the determents that is modifiable to help reduce health disparities is nutrition. While nutrition is only one component of the overall health picture, it is a vital element in reducing health disparities such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Public health nutrition looks very different from a community level compared to the individual level. On the individual level nutritional