Health Economics

Lectures 1 to 4 provided an introduction to economic principles and concepts, and the first assignment was based on these lectures.

In lectures 5 to 8, a framework is presented that provides a tool for analyzing the existing situation in a country’s health system with respect to health care financing and resource allocation, and equally provides a tool to assist in identifying and assessing policy options.

Using this framework, together with the knowledge and skills you are acquiring in this unit, prepare a PowerPoint presentation that provides an economic analysis of the health system of a country of your choice. In particular, you may want to include some of the following issues in your presentation and discussion –

(i)                            
Revenue collection mechanisms

(ii)                          
Pooling of funds

(iii)                       
Purchasing arrangements

(iv)                      
Provision (delivery) of health services

(v)                        
Role of contracting (if any)

(vi)                      
Methods of payment to health professionals and institutions

(vii)                    
Role of the public and private sectors

(viii)                 
‘Benefit package’ for the population

(ix)                      
Existing policies on health priorities, cost containment, etc.

(x)                         
Recent health system reform initiatives (ifs any)

(xi)                      
Challenges facing the health system

(xii)                    
Policy options to address current challenges

(xiii)                  
Fiscal sustainability of the health system Other issues may be discussed also.

The assignment should be a critical analysis of the health system of the country of your choice rather than just a description. For example, you may like to discuss how the method(s) of financing health care impacts on efficiency, equity and cost control. Or examine how the current purchasing arrangements improve health system performance. Or explore what factors underlie the public-private mix in the health sector and how this impact on access to and the affordability of health care.

Each power point slide must have corresponding text written in the notes section of the slide where you discuss in more depth the points that you have presented on the slide. This discussion must be written using correct grammar and sentence structure in the same way as required in a typical written assignment. References must be included in the text in the notes section. The PowerPoint presentation is to contain a maximum of 20 slides (excluding the references). The text on the notes pages must not exceed 2500 words, and any word count over 3,000 words will not be marked