Provide examples of the following types of government intervention in healthcare:

a. Government production

b. Subsidies

c. Taxes on products

e. Price regulation

f. Quality regulation

g. Inaction

The government plays an essential role in the health sector in a bid to improve the health standards of its people.

Below are some of the ways in which the government intervenes in the health sector.

a) Government production. The government disintegrates monopolistic market structures so that medical services are accessible to the less privileged. For instance, when high-risk surgeries are only procured in a single facility, it is too expensive for low-income earners to access such services so when the government avails such services locally they become accessible to the general public.

b) Subsidies. This is where the government caters for a percentage of the costs incurred in the production process of a medical product in this case. The government can provide subsidies for medicines that curb and cure fatal diseases and are expensive to buy in a bid to lower their retail prices in the facilities. This also ensures a reduction in the fatality rate emanating from deadly diseases. It is also an advantage to the company which eventually expands its supply base.

c) Taxes on products. The government can impose higher taxes on harmful products to reduce their consumption which promotes a higher likelihood of low productivity among the low-income earners. Increased consumption of harmful products by ailing persons with low income translates to poverty and social insecurity.

d) Price regulation. This is a good initiative to avail affordable medical services and products in rural areas. The government can decide to open up medical camps in rural areas to assist the less privileged with close access to these facilities and products.

e) Quality regulation. The government can induce regulations that ensure adequate training of service providers in medical facilities and production of quality products that serve the desired purposes without having to cause more health hazards than actually doing away with them.

f) Inaction. The government can intervene here by drawing attention to infectious diseases that breed state pandemics. The spread can be controlled by quarantining those that are affected in designated medical facilities away from the public.