Mechanisms Involved in the Choice for Health Providers

Health Economic
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Describe in detail the mechanisms that must be enabled to support consumer choice of insurers and/or health care providers, as well as the advantages or disadvantages of providing such a choice.
Introduction
Every country wishes to create a quality and affordable healthcare system. However, healthcare is expensive because almost every supply side of it is expensive, from patented drugs, expensive machinery, high cost of training, and compensation of medical professionals, among others. When capitalistic interests creep into this industry, healthcare becomes expensive and a reserve of few CITATION Gar161 \l 1033 (Branning & Vater, 2016). Patients consume services out of necessity (not want). Healthcare would be expensive if commercial interests are prioritized and may not necessarily translate to the best quality. Therefore, governments have adopted one of the four dominant systems to fund healthcare; the Beveridge Model, the Bismarck model, the National Health Insurance model, and the out-of-pocket model. Each of these models has its inherent shortcomings, and experts have criticized them for prioritizing different objectives. For example, the Beveridge model has been faulted for long waiting lists and people paying for services they do not need (it is compulsory to pay for taxes that fund. The Bismarck model is mainly faulted that it doesn’t provide universal health coverage since it is employment-based and covers those who contribute to it. National health insurance is often faulted for cost, and some people cannot afford coverage. The out-of-pocket is faulted because it is unaffordable to some people. Therefore, each of these healthcare systems limits consumer choice of insurers and healthcare providers. There is no silver bullet to achieve this goal. However, the convergence of the advantages of each model can come close to delivering healthcare that supports consumer choice of insurers and healthcare providers CITATION Cic94 \l 1033 (Cichon & Normand, 1994).
The best approach would be to borrow the best aspects of each model and create a hybrid model CITATION Cic94 \l 1033 (Cichon & Normand, 1994). In the case of universal health care as a basic human right, the government controls the autonomy of the people, especially on hospitals and specialist costs. It seeks to keep the costs as low as possible because it bears the brunt of reimbursement. On the other hand, the insured has many options through insurance companies. They can take the packages that best address their needs in consumer healthcare. Healthcare is guaranteed for all citizens and permanent residents in the resulting model.
On the other hand, a tightly controlled insurance market offers supplementary benefit packages for the people. One country has crafted this hybrid model, and it has been working very well in the last two decades. It has kept the government expenditure on healthcare very low and has achieved very high rates of private insurance. It has also tightly controlled the operations such that the quality of care is top-notch and efficient. Consumer choice is determined by the package they choose to take through their private insurance plans.
How the system wor...