Spiraling Health Care Costs: What you need to know

United States Citizens pay more than one and a half trillion dollars for medical care each year and costs related to all manner of health care, such as prescription drugs, continue to skyrocket. While a few of the reasons behind this booming bill are comprehensible, US Citizens caught in a cash crunch may be surprised to hear some of the lesser-known reasons for high health care costs.

The phrase health care may invoke images of doctors, nurses and hospitals, but the reality is that the medical field is a business and a remorseless one at that. Individual practitioners, researchers and participants may have marvelous aims and a true need to serve people, but the structure of the U.S. health care system assures profit is the highest issue of importance.

Here are some facts that may assist in explaining the escalating costs of US health care:

Pharmaceutic research and development companies spend about $20 billion every year on Research and development, and about a similar sum on advertising and self-promotional marketing activities.

Also, drug companies have as many sales persons as there are doctors in the U.S.. One of the responsibilities of these sales teams is to convince doctors to go to their company-sponsored seminars where medicines are showcased.

According to some economic experts, the purchase of new technology is responsible for more than 50 percent of new health care outlay over the last 3 years.

A good deal of the hard cash Americans pay for health care finds its way into the increasing profits on health care-related merchandise and services such as the supply of medical insurance. Even higher costs have been envisaged for the future, especially for prescription drugs.

For many United States Citizens who are not able to afford the health care they require, increasing prices symbolize an ever-increasing block to medical services and merchandise. The fiscal effect is also experienced on the greater national scale with about fifteen percent of gross domestic product going towards health care costs. That is equal to close to a fourth of the yearly federal budget.

Comparatively, Canada invests around 10 percent of its GDP on its public health care program. Unlike the US, Canadas health care program is universally available to all citizens and permanent residents without cost. Other countries, such as Germany, where there is a public/private delivery system model for health care, manage to serve their populations for even less whilst still having greater longevity than North Americans. This proves that the caliber of health care does not rise proportionately with the amount of money spent to achieve it.

While many Canadians supplement their overall health care with extra insurance to the cost of medication and benefits such as semi-private or private hospital rooms, health care insurance is much more necessary in the United States. Unfortunately, costs have been increasing dramatically, making health care insurance inaccessible for many Americans. Presently, more than forty million Americans do not receive any variety of health care benefit.

For employers, providing health care insurance for employees is also becoming increasingly expensive, with increases dramatically outpacing inflation rates. Some years, the difference is four or six fold. Even if premiums were to remain static, offering health care insurance to employees still costs several thousand dollars per worker. For smaller companies, or for the ones who employ a large number of people, these costs can be prohibitive.

Measures to shrink health care costs are always under consideration, though many are not popular choices. Suggestions that have been raised by various sources have included:

Extra drug awareness and instruction. Millions could be saved if health care insurance covered only generic variants of drugs that have been proven just as effective as their more expensive brand name counterparts.

Stop expensive treatment options will only add a short amount of time to a patients life, especially if it will not be quality time (i.e. patient is in a coma).

Encourage preventative care such as smart lifestyle options, proper nutrition and exercise.

Analyze ways to control drug advertising to consumers. There is speculation that advertising has led to prescriptions of non-necessary drugs.

Limit malpractice liability so doctors and medical professionals do not feel coerced to cover themselves by ordering unnecessary tests to substantiate conditions they already know to be present.