The household plays two main roles in US healthcare financing from two dimensions. The first dimension involves government costs for healthcare. The USA has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world in terms of the cost of training practitioners, the technology used, research and the cost of care (Emmanuel, Glickman & Johnson, 2017). Despite the fact that much of the healthcare system is in the private sector, the US federal government still incurs monumental costs annually. When the government does not have enough funds for healthcare, it relies on a household-based bonds program to raise funds. For example, the insufficiency of funds may arise due to an unexpected public health crisis, such as an epidemic, causing the government to spend money not included on the annual budget. Households buy government bonds through a system that provides them with tax-related benefits. In return, the government gets enough funding to continue running the healthcare system.
The second dimension of the household’s role in health finance is as an avenue for financing. The cost of medical services in America has improved exponentially in the last century. With this improvement came an exponential increase in allied costs. Most American families cannot afford the cost of treatment as and when a family member has a major ailment. The solution to the high cost of healthcare has been medical insurance inter alia through Employer-sponsored Health Insurance (ESI) with or without out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses (Emmanuel, Glickman & Johnson, 2017). Other Americans organize their private health insurance arrangements without involving employers. The household provides an important unit through which Americans can negotiate and contract insurance financiers for health insurance. For example, in a family with two parents and three children of different ages, it would be tedious and costly to negotiate five different insurance covers. The household presents an opportunity for the family to negotiate a single cover for the entire family as a unit thus cutting costs.
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References
Emanuel, E. J., Glickman, A., & Johnson, D. (2017). Measuring the burden of health care costs on US families: the affordability index. Jama , 318 (19), 1863-1864.
