Population Health Assignment PDF

Running head: POPULATION HEALTH
Population health
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1POPULATION HEALTH
Introduction:
Health care system of different countries is a product of its culture, demographic, history
and politics. Every health care system has some diverse elements and some of the elements may
be better than elements of other health care system. Since the acceleration in health care demands
and complexity of integrative care models across different health care system, it is necessary to
understand link between governance structures and its impact on peak system performance and
operationalisation of a system (Hastings et al., 2014). This may help to understand the reason for
shifting to privatized health care system from public health care system. Although many people
describe Australian health care system as one of the best in the world, however there should be
some framework to measure and evaluate any health care system. This report also has a similar
focus and the main aim is to compare and contrast different health systems of Australia, the UK
and the US. After discussion on governance, structure and function of each of the systems, the
report also analyzes the effectiveness of the three systems by utilizing the analytical framework
of efficiency, effectiveness and equity. In addition, the report also gives an overview about the
reform proposed in each system.
Evaluate the governance, structure and function of each of the systems:
Australia:
The health care system of Australia is regarded as the most affordable, accessible and
comprehensive health care system in the world because of the presence of Medicare Benefits
Scheme (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). It has combination of both
private and public sector health service providers. Medicare was introduced in 1984 and

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introduction of this scheme in Australia paved the way for universal access to comprehensive
range of health services. Although introduced in 1984, Medicare is still central to the Australian
health care system (Palmer & Short, 2000). Health services are mostly public-funded and
universal access to free treatment and subsidies are available in public hospitals and medical
services respectively. This implies that the main purpose of the health care funding system is to
increase access to health care for all and at an affordable cost (NSW Government, 2018).
The governance structure of Australia also plays a major role in providing universal
access to care. There are three levels of government existing in the country such as federal, state
and territory and local government (Taylor, Foster & Fleming, 2008). The federal government
has the importuning function of providing funding and developing national policies. It provides
findings to state and subsidies to health care providers through MBS and PBS, whereas the state
and local government have the responsibility to manage public health services. The state
government is involved in the management of public health and community health services and
the local government is involved in the delivery of preventive health programs (Duckett &
Willcox, 2015). With the presence of such governance structure, the life expectancy data of
Australia is strong, however the country is struggling with gap in health outcome of indigenous
and non-indigenous population.
UK:
The United Kingdom (UK) provides access to both public and private health care
services. Unlike universal access to free treatment in Australia, the health care coverage in UK is
free to the point of need and it is paid by general taxation. The National Health Service or NHS
founded in 1946, looks after the public health sector of UK. Before 1946, health care was

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available only for wealthy people, however with series of reformation, health care standards in
UK improved and health services became more affordable for people. The NHS is regarded as a
government-sponsored universal health care system which is formed by amalgamation of series
of public funded systems like NHS England, NHS Wales and Health and Social Care in Northern
Ireland. A study done for seven industrialized countries showed UK to be one of the most
efficient in the world and closely competing with Australia. The quality of care improved with
the increase in total national spending on health. Apart from public health sector, the private
health care sector is acquired by private health insurance and funded directly by customer or by
employer funded health care scheme (Chang et al., 2011). The Department of Health has the
responsibility to improve health and well-being of people and publish policies in their website.
On the whole, it can be said that the NHS is the main command and control systems that
promotes accountability within NHS. Reinforcement of centralized funding and shared values of
free access, equitable access and universality reflects the quality of UK health care system
(Peckham, 2014).
US:
The health care system of US is a hybrid system consisting of both single-payer and
multi-payer universal health insurance system. Health care fundings come both from private
sector and governance structure (Squires & Anderson, 2015). Hence, it can be said that financing
responsibility of the US health care system is shared both by private insurance companies and
the government. From this perspective, U.S health care system can be said as a multi-payer
system. The government used fundings from Medicare and Medicaid to reimburse health care
providers and the private insurers collects premiums from businesses, people and government.
Among the insured group, 36.5% people received coverage through Medicare, Medicaid and the