The future of healthcare
26 August 2015
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Economic Theory
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Economic Theory
11 November 2024
Which country in the world has the best healthcare? Is the NHS fit for purpose? What are the alternatives? How are our healthcare systems going to change in the future? Can the free market provide effective, universal healthcare?
Critics of market mechanisms in healthcare argue that the area is just too complex to be left to the market, that the preconditions for a functioning market – rational, well-informed consumers – are not in place, and that moving away from state provision would entail a loss of democratic accountability. Do they have a point?
At the IEA’s THINK conference, these and other questions were addressed by the IEA’s Head of Health and Welfare Dr Kristian Niemietz. Kristian is the author of the IEA’s ‘NHS Trilogy’:
Critics of market mechanisms in healthcare argue that the area is just too complex to be left to the market, that the preconditions for a functioning market – rational, well-informed consumers – are not in place, and that moving away from state provision would entail a loss of democratic accountability. Do they have a point?
At the IEA’s THINK conference, these and other questions were addressed by the IEA’s Head of Health and Welfare Dr Kristian Niemietz. Kristian is the author of the IEA’s ‘NHS Trilogy’:
- ‘A patient approach. Putting the consumer at the heart of UK healthcare’,
- ‘What are we afraid of? Universal healthcare in market-orientated health systems’
- ‘Health check: The NHS and market reforms’.
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Many thanks for this excellent summary that calmly dismisses many of the myths regarding what happens in (the non US) countries that do not have The NHS! The National Pub Service example is helpful – almost all healthcare workers despair at politicisation of healthcare, yet this is the only possible outcome in a wholly publicly funded system.
At 16:50 mins – UK GPs suffer from the problem of being penalised for attracting the most difficult patients. Those that offer a better service attract patients most incentivised to choose a more responsive practice, yet suffer a financial penalty as those patients attend the practice far more often, or require home visits or nursing home ward rounds.
I plotted our GP appointment rate against the Risk Profile (Johns Hopkins ACG tool) score for our patients and the results were predictable yet dramatic.
Giving individual patients an individual Risk score, and tying primary care funding to the individual patients registered, would lead to a dramatic change in the way practices compete for different types of patients.