economics AS unit 1

Can somebody please give me 4 points to use as paragraphs in my essay please.

''Scarce resources can be allocated or rationed between competing uses in a number of ways’ (Extract E, lines 1–2).
- Using the data and your economic knowledge, evaluate the case for and the case against the NHS charging for its services.

Extract E: Matching supply and demand for health care services
Scarce resources can be allocated or rationed between competing uses in a number of ways. In a free market, the price mechanism rations the use of scarce resources. However, governments can also allocate resources, although this may lead to queues and lengthy waiting lists In the UK, most health care services are provided by the National Health Service (NHS). Many NHS services are free at the point of use for consumers and financed out of taxation. However, an ageing population, changing lifestyles and people’s changing expectations of their right to health care are all factors which have led to excess demand for many NHS services.Demand for most NHS services has always run ahead of supply. The government could try to match demand with supply either by reducing demand or by increasing supply. Demand could be reduced by charging patients for the health care they receive. Alternatively, the government could increase the supply of health care services by spending more on them. However, improvements in medical technology and the development of new, but usually expensive, drugs are dramatically increasing the cost of supplying NHS services to meet existing demand, let alone future demand. Increasing the supply of services may simply be unaffordable for the taxpayer Perhaps the best route forward is to manage expectations so that people expect less from the NHS. For example, should people expect free treatment for a leg injury received while out jogging? Should people expect the NHS to provide a free hip replacement for a ninety year old who has already received two replacements in the past ten years? These are the kind of questions that might need answering in the near future

Extract F: Health care reform in the UK
Various government health care agencies in the UK are responsible for rationing scarce NHS resources: for example, by telling doctors whether or not they can prescribe very expensive drugs for the treatment of cancer patients.This system for rationing scarce NHS resources has been criticised in two main ways. First, some argue that the system is unfair because it has led to a situation in which drugs and treatments are available in some parts of the country but not in others. Second, some argue that the system for making rationing decisions in the NHS is ‘top-down’, with managers at the top making the rationing decisions rather than the local doctors who care for the patients.
These criticisms lie behind the health care reforms announced by the Department of Health in 2011. It was proposed that in a new ‘bottom-up’ system, local doctors would take over the task of rationing scarce resources: for example, by ordering drugs and booking operations for their patients. One aim is to increase competition within the NHS, although critics believe that the reforms will lead to the eventual break-up of the NHS as a ‘free-at-the-point-of-use’ comprehensive service.Some argue that the break-up of the NHS is already taking place. The NHS no longer provides free dental care for most of the UK population, which has led to a situation in which many people, especially the poor, go without regular dental health checks. Should the government restore free, or heavily subsidised, NHS dental care? Or should people have to pay full market prices for any dental care they receive?

economics AS unit 1

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