Medical financing by the government is limited to particular procedures, consultations, and medicine. Several commissions are mandated with determining the medical and ethical reasoning behind the financing of the medical requirements by the public; Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC).
A post in Washington Post in 2010 addressed the financing of a drug, Provenge, meant for advanced prostate cancer patients. As a rule, when deciding on the ethical and medical advantages of financing in the medical faculty for patients, the cost is not supposed to be considered. However even some cancer institutions think that the costs are crippling, “We can’t afford it as a society,” (Stein, 2010, p. 1 para 19). Though the commissions are required to overlook the costs, they are managed by human beings. Among the ethical questions is the future of funding public medical health when it costs as much as ninety thousand dollars an individual over four months of added life.
The government, through the commissions, desires to provide affordable health care. However, the challenge is the cost of the availability of quality care against the limited medical budgets. Though the commissions are mandated to overlook the finances of the projects, they operate under limited budgets. Hence they, first check their financial capability and then proceed to the ethics. The financial factor can be addressed by having a flexible budget; by allowing for the financing of new projects from the central governments, a realization of medically sound ideas would be easier and faster.
Often ethical research is deterred by people in position because they do want the truth revealed. Such is the case when junior staff conduct ethical research when they have to audit their bosses. Also, consideration of the effects of the process on the health of the medical practitioner and the patient is considered (Milstead, 2004). In contrast, the opinion of the patient is not considered such as the case in the Provenge medicine for prostate cancer patients.
Another proposal for the costs of medical practices is, “Induce hospitals and health plans to improve efficiency and not just costs,” (Weinstein & Skinner, 2010, p. 465). Through cost-effective studies, medical facilities will invest more in preventive than curative measures. Also, by determining the level of efficiency of some medical practices, the process hopes to reduce the millions that are spent on otherwise redundant and less significant practices. The funds could be used to invest in the projects stalled surreptitiously for lack of funds.
Conclusion
The efficiency of care is quantified by the quality of healthcare services provided. The costs of operation and medical products are expensive but are important for the maintenance of hospitals. The best solution is a re-evaluation of the efficiency of practices giving priority to the most efficient practices.
References
Milstead, J. A. (2004). Health Policy and Politics (2 ed.). Mississauga, Canada: Jones and Bartlett Publishers Canada. Retrieved March 09, 2018
Stein, B. (2010, November 8). Review of prostate cancer drug Provenge renews the medical cost-benefit debate. Washington Post, 1(1), 1. Retrieved March 09, 2018, from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/07/AR2010110705205.html
Weinstein, M. C., & Skinner, J. A. (2010, February 8). Comparative Effectiveness and Health Care Spending — Implications for Reform. The New England Journal of Medicine, 36(2), 460-465. Retrieved March 09, 2018, from http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb0911104
