Reference no: EM132139512

Question: Home 1 Infant health care Please download the question and submit your answer through Turnitin. Your essay will count about the same as a typical Course Key Quiz (8 points)

1. Studies have revealed that infant and early childhood health and nutrition have lifelong effects on the physical and mental development of the children. If the benefits are measured by the earnings of the children when they become adults, and the costs are measured by the cost of the doctors' and nurses' visits and the cost of a nutritious diet, studies have revealed that the benefits are at least three times the costs. Assume this information is correct.

Now consider a proposal to have the government launch a program to provide health care and nutrition advice to all parents of newborn children for the first three years of the child's life. Consider three options for this program:

a. the program is free for all parents and is compulsory; parents who fail to bring their children to the clinics for doctors' visits will be fined.

b. the program is free for all parents and is entirely voluntary.

c. the government does not actually provide the doctors' visits and the nutrition advice, but provides information to all parents of newborn children of the benefits of early childhood health and nutrition.

Which of these three options do you favor, and why? Provide some reasons for your preference. It is clear that any expenditure of government resources will require tax revenues to pay for the expenditure. c, the collection of tax revenues and possibly mandating parental behavior to achieve childhood health and nutrition? We have discussed six possible justifications for government action to replace the free market. Which of these justifications will you be using to support your proposed course of action. (Understand: the free-market approach is to leave the decisions entirely up to the parents, with no government action at all.)