Healthcare Costs and Coverage: McAllen's Case Study Analysis, Solution

This report analyzes the high healthcare costs in McAllen, Texas, highlighting the city's position as a costly area despite not necessarily providing superior care. The report examines the over-utilization of medical services, driven by factors such as physician incentives and patient demand, leading to excessive testing and treatments. The study references the impact of Medicare and the need for comprehensive coverage solutions. The report suggests that a shift in healthcare governance is needed, potentially involving government or private insurers, to manage the totality of care and control costs. The analysis touches upon economic concepts such as high demand contributing to high prices and the inverse relationship between Medicare spending and quality rankings. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for careful governance and synchronization to improve healthcare affordability.

Health care -Coverage v/s Cost

Summary
Health care markets in the world are most expensive in McAllen throughout the world. All the
medical institutes there have all the advanced updates of technology yet there is no as such
evidence to suggest that the treatment they facilitate are better than anywhere else since the
annual reports that the hospitals submit with Medicare have shown that McAllen and El Paso
have comparable technologies. Nor does the care given in McAllen stand out for its quality.
McAllen five largest hospitals performed worse on average than El Paso’s as per Medicare’s
reporting.
Over the period of time there has been the shift in the fundamentals in the patterns of practicing
medicine from a noble profession, now it has turned out to be the business to make profits.
However, the biggest problem in McAllen has been the overuse of medical care. This is because
of American’s belief that for most of the things more is better- more diagnostic testing, more
hospital treatment, more surgery and more home care. But research suggests that more demand
for medicine make the case actually worse.
Physicians who receive the fee for their services, as well as a part of hospital's profits from the
tests and surgeries, get tempted to over-order. Another study by Fisher has shown that patients in
high-cost areas have fewer chances to receive low-cost preventive services.The costs are high
because of careless governance, the accumulative decision of doctors to decide the order for
services and treatments. Providing health care require experts, expensive equipment, and
materials as well as huge amount of synchronization.
According to me, the solution to higher medical cost is that whether its government or private
insurer, someone has to take charge for the totality of care for an extensive level coverage.

Two economic concepts involved here is that high price charged for medicine is there in
McAllen because of the high demand for medications on the part of patients. Another concept by
Dartmouth has been that more money Medicare spent per person lower would be the state’s
quality ranking tend to be.

REFERENCE
Mead, R., Wallace-Wells, B., Fan, J., Kolhatkar, S., Brody, R., & Crouch, I. et al. (2017). The
New Yorker. The New Yorker. Retrieved 11 April 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com