I have written synopsis's on five Economic articles and applied two economic concepts for each article. Will you check to see if I have applied the right concepts or principles, defined them and discussed each of them adequately? I welcome all the feedback and/ or corrections that you will give me. I have listed them in order with references on the bottom. Also, I need it back asap because it is due by 5:30 at the latest. Thank you in advance.

Economic Assignment

Article 1

I chose my first article from Health Economics, "Supplementary private health insurance: The impact of physician financial incentives on medical practice." It goes over the impacts of physicians incentives in the health care industry. Carin Milcent and Saad Zbiri studied the rates of cesareans performed in public and private hospitals in the United States and France. The study's results show that the effects of certain types of payment systems sway doctors to strongly encourage pregnant women to forego vaginal deliveries for c-section. It also highlighted that because of the additional money from the incentives, many doctors could steer their patients towards c-sections and increase the number of patients they treated. They concluded that cesarean deliveries take up a significant amount of resources in the healthcare industry. According to the Administrative Department in France, the research concludes that despite multiple factors such as income, employment, and patient health risks, that women in France are more likely to have c-sections.

Incentives

The article's study suggests that economic incentives play a large role in doctors' decisions and the hospitals. The physicians who work for private hospitals have a higher incentive than physicians at public hospitals. Incentives are factors that we consider when making decisions because they encourage us to make a certain choice. In the health care industry, payment systems such as value-based payment systems will encourage or punish a doctor or hospital based on the quality of care that they provide, which affects the organization and the physicians' profits. The study notes that insurance companies will reimburse the private hospitals through fee-for-service, which means that the hospital will not make more money for providing better service. Ultimately, France and the United States researchers concluded that because of the similarities between the two, the obstetricians do not base their decision on which type of delivery a pregnant woman will have on financial incentives.

Opportunity Cost

In the study, several factors such as patient choice and the physician opportunity cost are related to increased cesarean delivery rates. The study tells us that physicians will choose to perform c-sections over a vaginal delivery because of liability concerns or because it is much easier to manage. For example, when I was pregnant with my first child, my obstetrician strongly suggested that I be induced because it would be more convenient. At the time, my husband and I were in the middle of moving from Californian to Virginia. In the end, my opportunity cost or choice was to have my daughter a few days early because the trade-off, me going into labor while traveling up to Virginia, scared me to death. Another opportunity cost discussed in the article is that women giving birth in public hospitals do not get to choose their doctors. However, midwives are the ones with the choice. They decide when the obstetrician needs to be contacted. In private hospitals, the patient's opportunity cost is the doctor of their choice. It also means that when expectant mothers are unhappy with their doctors, they can choose a different one, which will result in the expectant mother being more comfortable with her doctor, during her appointments, and during her delivery.

Article 2:

In the research article "The role of wage beliefs in the decision to become a nurse" from the Journal of Health Economics, Philipp Kugler's research seeks to understand the cause(s) behind the international nursing shortage. Kugler theorizes that nursing shortages are due to people's lack of information and understanding of how much money nurses make. Part of Kugler's data was gathered from studies performed on teenagers, analyzing education levels, familial backgrounds, differences in personalities, and interests. Based on his findings, he found that a person's beliefs on salary will influence their decision on whether they will go into the nursing profession or not and that the size of the effect of the influences is not as big as individual preference.

Shortage in the Labor Market

The economic concept of shortage occurs when there are not enough resources to meet the demands of labor. The study shows an international supply shortage of nurses even though the nursing career field is in high demand. The nursing shortage is so dire that it took almost six months to fill available nursing positions in Germany. Due to the supply shortage, there is an additional strain on healthcare organizations that is only getting worse because as we age, the demand for skilled nurses will continue to increase.

FramingEffects on the Labor Market

Framing Effects is a concept under behavior economics. It means that we make decisions based on the delivery of information, and if the information is delivered differently, we will more than likely make a different choice. This concept on people's behavior is applicable because the author theorizes that if people are introduced to information on the nursing career at an earlier age, they may become more interested in it and choose to get a degree in nursing and potentially increase the labor supply of nurses.

Article 3

In the article "Competition-driven physician-induced demand," the authors performed a study on public and private hospitals in Japan and how new medical equipment affected competition, patient trade-offs, and the need for more physicians. The authors broke down the hypothesis into two groups; external factors that drove competition between multiple hospitals and how the shift in the number of patients from one hospital affected the demand for more doctors in the other hospital. The study shows that when hospitals purchased new equipment such as MRI machines, people would choose to go to those hospitals for treatment. Thus, increasing the hospitals' amount of work and their need for additional staff due to the increase in MRI scans.

Competition

Competition occurs when more than one business or organization produces identical or similar products and services, and the consumer must choose which organizations are best for them, like Ford and GMC. In the study, both the public and private hospitals offer similar services and products, but they vary in the types of medical equipment they have on hand. Causes the Japanese people to choose which of the competing organizations they will go to for treatment.

Trade-Off

Trade-off means to give up one thing so that they may obtain something else. Since the people of Japan have the choice of any clinic or hospital to go to for treatment they have to choose. They must choose between a facility that offers new technology that can help diagnose illnesses earlier but is farther away from their homes or stay close and choose a facility that might not offer specialized treatments or have types of equipment such as MRI scans. If they choose to get treatment close to home, the trade-off is limited healthcare treatment but it.

Article 4

In the article "Crowd-Out and Emergency Department Utilization," Cameron M. Ellis and Meghan I. Esson explain how the poor and the uninsured relied on emergency departments for health care services such as primary care before and after the expansion of California's Medicaid and Low Income Health Program. When the Affordable Care Act expanded healthcare access and coverage to millions, both the poor and the uninsured were moved onto public insurance plans. The hope was that it would encourage them to seek primary care in practices or community centers. However, once the study was concluded, the results showed that the two groups continued to rely on emergency departments for care despite the Medicaid and LIHP's expansion because of the ease of access and it was more affordable.

Substitution

Substitution refers to a consumer choosing a product or a service over another because it is more affordable or better quality. For instance, the ones who had been privately insured that were now enrolled in public insurance were able to seek treatment in doctors' offices, but due to the higher out-of-pocket cost, they substituted emergency rooms and community clinics for treatment instead of seeking treatment at a physician's office.

Elasticity

Elasticity is an economic concept that indicates how responsive one variable is to price rising or decreasing. In the study, the authors specifically mention cross-price elasticity, which calculates how responsive the demand of one variable is to the other variables' increase or decrease in price. It can be very sensitive(elastic), barely responsive (inelastic), or equal to the change in price (unit elastic). The study's elasticity tells us that demand is very sensitive to the rise in insurance cost. Their cost-sharing expenses decreased a little for many, and they saw a bigger decrease in their access to private practices for primary care because very few doctors accept Medicaid Beneficiaries. They were causing the demand for emergency rooms and community centers to grow. On the other hand, the newly insured individuals saw a drop in cost-sharing, increased access to primary doctors, and a slight rise in the price for emergency room visits.

Article 5

My last article is " Balancing health and financial protection in the health benefits package design" and is found in Health Economics. The World Health Organization intends to publicly finance the new healthcare system after a feasible budget has been found. The author's research provides a quantitative guideline for policymakers to follow based on the financial risk and the increased quality of health for each subject based on the benefit, the total population, and the optimum intervention for the study's candidate. Their mathematical calculations and methods determine the affordability of benefit packages that cover preventative services such as, annual checkups and vaccinations, and curative services like treatment for malaria, broken bones, and life-saving procedures. However, there are a few factors that were not accounted for such as, health disparities, socioeconomic health outcomes, or prioritizing groups of disadvantaged individuals that will cause limitations. However, their method will allow other researchers to define objectives and identify constraints to eliminate waste for the policymakers.

Budget Constraint

Budget Constraint is all the potential combinations of multiple goods that a consumer can afford based on their specific budget. For example, I have $20 and I want to go to the movies after shopping. I found a dress for $15, a movie ticket cost $8, soda and popcorn will cost me $5. I can afford to go to the movies and get a snack but the trade-off is I will not be able to buy the dress because of my $20 budget. The researchers originally analyzed the results of the data and concluded that the budget including all expenditures was $40 million. However, each potential benefits package has additional costs and the policyholders cannot afford all benefit options so they must choose with package(s) that will provide the most benefit to the population without exceeding their budget.

Cost Benefits

My final principle is cost benefits. It means that a company or person should only act or make a decision after analyzing the marginal benefits and costs that are associated with the individual's or organization's decision before acting. For example, the researchers compared the current and future benefits to the financial risks and concluded by adding primary care the cost would slightly. However, the benefits that come from primary care outweigh the cost because the services that are provided will prevent or catch illness early so that will prevent costs from rising to unmanageable levels.

Reference

Article 1

Milcent, C., & Zbiri, S. (2021). Supplementary private health insurance: The impact of physician financial incentives on medical practice. Journal of Health Economics. Published. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4443

https://doi-org.ezproxy3.lhl.uab.edu/10.1002/hec.4443

Article 2

Kugler, P. (2021). The role of wage beliefs in the decision to become a nurse. Health Economics. Published. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4442

https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy3.lhl.uab.edu/doi/epdf/10.1002/hec.4442

Article 3

Li, X., & Waibel, C. (2019). Patients' Free Choice of Physicians Is Not Always Good. Health Economics. Published. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3376742

https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy3.lhl.uab.edu/doi/10.1002/hec.4407

Article 4

Aouad, M., Brown, T. T., & Whaley, C. M. (2021). Understanding the distributional impacts of health insurance reform: Evidence from a consumer costsharing program. Health Economics, 30(11), 2780-2793.

https://doi-org.ezproxy3.lhl.uab.edu/10.1002/hec.4410

Article 5

Lofgren, K. T., Watkins, D. A., Memirie, S. T., Salomon, J. A., & Verguet, S. (2021). Balancing health and financial protection in health benefit package design. Health Economics. Published. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4434

https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy3.lhl.uab.edu/doi/10.1002/hec.4434