Healthcare economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to scarcity in the allocation of health and health care. Evaluate the current policy debate of healthcare reform (Obama- Care and other alternatives). What are the major implications of private vs. public healthcare? What are the microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects of healthcare reform? Should reform address current private and public (Medicare, Medicaid, VA) systems or introduce a new public system? What are the advantages/disadvantages of the proposed solutions? When considering healthcare, how is supply and demand defined? Identify the consumers and producers for this industry. What is driving the increase in healthcare costs? Consider costs for medical care, drugs and drugs companies, research and development, insurance premiums, medical technology, physicians/specialists, life expectancy, demographics, access, etc. Examine the economic concepts and theories we've covered thus far as they relate to the topic. Address questions you find of interest, you do not have to answer all questions. This assignment will be due NO LATER THAN Sunday, October 26, 2014.

Please help me two finish this discussion topic with 150 words by giving the source of where you get it from. And also write the other two responses with 150 words each as well for the discussion i posted below.

Discussion Topic:
That Healthcare economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to scarcity in the allocation of health and health care.

Evaluate the current policy debate of healthcare reform (Obama- Care and other alternatives). What are the major implications of private vs. public healthcare? What are the microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects of healthcare reform? Should reform address current private and public (Medicare, Medicaid, VA) systems or introduce a new public system? What are the advantages/disadvantages of the proposed solutions?

When considering healthcare, how is supply and demand defined? Identify the consumers and producers for this industry. What is driving the increase in healthcare costs? Consider costs for medical care, drugs and drugs companies, research and development, insurance premiums, medical technology, physicians/specialists, life expectancy, demographics, access, etc.

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Examine the economic concepts and theories we've covered thus far as they relate to the topic. Address questions you find of interest, you do not have to answer all questions. This assignment will be due NO LATER THAN Sunday, October 26, 2014.

When you are done with the assignment on top, please give two responses to the two discussions I posted below by giving responses, ideas of agree or disagree. Just write roughly 150 words for each of these two responses. Thank you.

First Discussion:
I did not know too much about healthcare upon first reading the prompt for this discussion. As far as I know, the issues of health care and insurance have not affected me at all. My family has good insurance, good health, and no problems keeping up with financial responsibilities. However, I am beginning to see now that my family is becoming an exception to a new norm. More and more people are being put onto Medicare and/or Medicaid every year. With the baby boomer generation finally reaching the coveted retirement age of 65, they are qualifying for Medicare. Plus, with the introduction of Obama-care, many more low income families are qualifying for Medicaid. To go right along with that, the growth of the population also contributes to the rise of Medicaid recipients. According to an article on www.economist.com, it is predicted that the number of people on Medicaid will increase by 30% by the year 2022. Along with that, the total cost for the expanding Medicaid market is sitting at about 420 billion dollars.

The numbers and figures that I read about my source were staggering to me. I know that this was a hot topic nowadays, but I vastly underestimated the potential magnitude it can have on today's society, as well as the future. Now, I know that health insurance is an umbrella term for many different kinds of hindrances of the human body. There are physical injuries, mental health, and sickness and diseases just to narrow it down a bit more. Many of the aliments that fall under these categories have specific treatments that are put into action to help you overcome them. However, there is a lot more money to be made in finding drugs and treatments to temporarily fix a problem rather than curing it all together. It might not be the most popular opinion to all of the big name insurance companies, or even the government itself, but the solution is in finding clear cut and permanent cures for the illnesses that plague the vast majority of us all. If we want to stop the potential hyper inflation on healthcare, and ween people of relying on the government to pay for their healthcare plans, then we need to find more permanent ways of curing the mental and physical illnesses that run rampant throughout society. If we can do that, then there is no telling how much better the economy, and the health of us all, could possibly be.

2nd discussion:
What is driving the increase in healthcare costs?

The high and rising cost of health care in the United States is a pervasive and growing concern. In 2006, the U.S. spent $2.1 trillion on health care, more than any other developed country in the world. This expenditure represents over 15 percent of U.S. GDP and equates to more than $7,000 spent per person. Health care costs are rising faster than the overall economy, wages and general consumer prices. During the two decades from 1985 to 2006, health care spending in the U.S. grew at 7.7 percent, while spending on GDP grew at the slower rate of 5.6 percent according to WellPoint.

One of the big reasons why health care costs continue to rise is the frequent use of higher priced technologies. According to WellPoint, Two papers referenced in a recent Robert Wood Johnson Foundation paper confirm that medical technology appears to be a major driving force behind the growth in U.S. health care spending. Estimates of how much medical technology contributes to health care spending growth range from 38 percent to more than 65 percent in these studies. While advances in technology can help reduce the cost of equipment, more often it results in an increase. Hospitals continuously purchase new equipment that enables them to provide better, more accurate diagnostics of a patients health. However, this new equipment is not cheap and comes at a cost that is passed on to the patients in the form of higher medical costs; which are justify by saying the benefits out weigh the costs.