response to riley wahl 1

********** please respond to discussion below, add citations and references 😉 *********

In the article, Health care financing and the sustainability of health systems, Liaropoulos states,

“The average retirement age, however, remained more or less the same at around 65. There are, therefore, twenty years in which a citizen incurs health costs without producing income as “insurance”. People of working age today must finance the health needs of their children, themselves and, mainly, the 3rd and 4th generation” (Liaropoulos, 2015, p.3).

This could cause a problem because people are retiring at the same age but living longer. This could result in not enough money for the retired folks or more of a tax burden on the working class. Some potential solutions to the problem include; giving less money to people, each month, when they turn 65, making the finances that are now available to people age 65 increase to an older age, or collaboratively as a community we can push for primary prevention in health. If we could educate people about how to be healthier and the benefits of it, then this would make a great difference in the cost of health care among elders. If people are healthier, as a whole, when they are older, they do not go to the doctor as much therefore costing the health care system less money. Then educating and enforcing of the primary prevention method would take a while to see results but it will work.

To reform the health care system is a long process that would involve getting a lot of different people behind an idea. It is a very complicated process but as nurses we can enforce primary prevention always to help prevent disease and illness among the population.

Liaropoulos, L., & Goranitis, I. (2015). Health care financing and the sustainability of health systems. International journal for equity in health, 14, 80. doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0208-5