Health care is vitally important, providing individuals with access to services that can prevent disease, treat illness and injury, and enhance quality of life. This benefit is crucial for all, especially children and pregnant women – without regular health care they risk death, disability or not being able to work and support their families.
Access to healthcare also has a profound effect on the economy, since this sector is one of the primary employers in many nations. Without reliable access and affordable health insurance plans in place, economic growth could be limited as well as innovation and competitiveness for industries that rely on having healthy workers.
People with health insurance tend to take greater advantage of recommended cancer screenings, visit primary care providers for physicals and other preventive services, and follow doctor’s orders when managing chronic conditions. By contrast, uninsured patients may opt out of such services or even delay care until their condition worsens significantly; additionally they often feel marginalized and stigmatized by their status; believing either that they cannot afford health insurance or that being without coverage constitutes irresponsibility or irresponsible behavior.
Health care provision protects individuals against financially disruptive medical expenses. Furthermore, pooling risks and resources of a group helps mitigate against one member’s illness or accident devastating everyone in it. Furthermore, health insurance provides access to affordable prescription drugs which help manage illnesses while avoiding hospital readmissions or unnecessary visits to emergency rooms.
A functioning healthcare system also necessitates a financing mechanism, an adequately paid workforce, reliable information technology infrastructure and safe and efficient health facilities. All these elements work to create equitable healthcare in which every individual can achieve their maximum health potential; yet disparities still persist for those from economically disadvantaged or rural communities.
Other social determinants of health may affect an individual’s wellbeing, including where they live, work, go to school and socialize as well as economic stability, level of education and family structure.
Access to primary health care is crucial for realizing these factors, providing comprehensive care that encompasses every aspect of health and wellbeing, from promotion and prevention through treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care – as close as possible to people’s daily environment. But to achieve this goal, governments must first ensure a sufficient health care workforce exists and is available and capable of meeting it. To this end, governments should invest in tertiary education and control youth unemployment rate in order to foster job creation and skills development within health care sector – this will allow the workforce to expand further while building stronger economies – all the while helping reduce health-related inequality while helping people live longer healthier lives.