Rising Health Care Costs: What you should know

United States Citizens pay more than 1.5 trillion dollars for medical care every year and costs related to all types of health care, such as prescription drugs, continue to accelerate. While a few of the reasons behind this booming bill are comprehensible, US Citizens caught in a cash crunch might be amazed to discover 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 pitiless one at that. Individual practitioners, researchers and participants may have fantastic intentions and a true desire to help people, but the structure of the American health care system ensures profit is the highest issue of importance.

Here is some information that could assist in explaining the high costs of American health care:

Pharmaceutic research and development corporations expend approximately twenty billion dollars each year on R&D, and approximately a similar sum on advertising and self-promotional marketing activities.

Additionally, drug companies have as many sales people as there are doctors in the U S. One of the responsibilities of this sales force is to convince doctors to go to pharmaceutical 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 three years.

A good deal of the cash US Citizens pay for health care finds its way into the rising profits on health care-related products and services such as the provision of medical insurance. Even higher costs have been forseen for the future, particularly for prescription drugs.

For many United States Citizens who are unable to afford the health care they require, increasing costs symbolise an ever-increasing impedance to medical services and products. The financial effect is also found on the larger national scale with about fifteen percent of gross domestic product going toward health care costs. That is equal to approximately one fourth of the annual federal budget.

Relatively, Canada invests in the area of 10 percent of its Gross domestic product on its public health care program. Unlike the U.S.A., 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 while still having greater longevity than Americans. This proves that the caliber of health care does not increase proportionally with the amount of money spent to attain it.

While many Canadians supplement their universal health care with added insurance to the cost of medication and perks such as semi-private or private hospital rooms, health care insurance is much more essential in the United States. Unfortunately, costs have been rising dramatically, making health care insurance unreachable for many Americans. Currently, more than 40 million Americans don't receive any type 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 stay static, offering health care insurance to employees still costs several thousand dollars per worker. For smaller companies, or for the ones that employ a large number of people, these costs can be prohibitive.

Measures to reduce health care costs are always under consideration, though many are not popular options. Suggestions that have been put forward by various sources have included:

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

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

Encourage preventative care such as smart lifestyle alternatives, correct nutrition and exercise.

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

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