Public policy and healthcare systems.

Public policy in healthcare affects physician and patient choices. In many ways it may limit choices. These choices present conflicts that are discussed here. Some issues depend on the laws enacted to enable either a single-payer system or that mixed with a private-payer system. In each case, the systems attain some cost controls through means such as gatekeepers, long wait lists, authorization processes, national fee schedules, complex coding schemes, or placing physicians on salary. National health systems are compared here. No one system has proven completely satisfactory, and each has its advantages. There are many factors that contribute to the escalating costs of care that lead to many healthcare public policies to constrain costs. Initiatives to incentivize preventive actions are a more positive step, but ones that are difficult to define in detail.