Increasing Health Care Costs: What you need to know

Americans 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 rocket. While a few of the reasons behind this booming bill are understandable, United States Citizens caught in a cash crunch might be amazed to learn a few of the lesser-known causes of escalating health care costs.

The phrase health care could conjure up images of doctors, nurses and hospitals, but the reality is that the medical field is an industry and a pitiless one at that. Individual practitioners, researchers and participants may have marvellous aims and a true need to serve people, but the structure of the American health care system ensures profit is the first issue of importance.

Here is some information that may assist in explaining the soaring costs of US health care:

Pharmaceutic research and development corporations expend roughly twenty billion dollars every year on R&D, and roughly the same amount on advertising and self-promotional marketing activities.

Additionally, drug companies have as many sales persons as there are doctors in the United States. One of the duties of these sales teams is to convince doctors to go to their company-sponsored seminars where medicines are showcased.

According to some economists, the purchase of up to date technology is responsible for more than 50 percent of new health care spending over the previous 3 years.

Much of the money Americans pay for health care finds its way into the spiraling profits on health care-related products and services such as the provision of medical insurance. Even higher costs have been forecast for the future, particularly for prescription drugs.

For numerous North Americans who are unable to afford the health care they require, rising costs represent an ever-increasing impedance to medical services and products. The fiscal burden is also found on the greater national scale with about fifteen percent of gross domestic product going toward health care costs. That is equal to around a fourth of the yearly federal budget.

Comparatively, Canada invests around ten percent of its GDP on its public health care program. Unlike the U.S., 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 populate for even less whilst still having better longevity than North Americans. This proves that the caliber of health care does not rise proportionally with the amount of money spent to attain it.

While many Canadians supplement their universal health care with extra insurance to the cost of medication and perks such as semi-private or private hospital rooms, health care insurance is much more necessary in the United States. Unfortunately, costs have been spiraling dramatically, making health care insurance out of reach for many Americans. Currently, more than 40 million Americans don't receive any type of health care benefit.

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

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

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

Terminate expensive treatment options will only add a short period 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 conjecture that advertising has led to prescriptions of non-necessary drugs.

Restrict malpractice liability so doctors and medical professionals do not feel forced to cover themselves by ordering unneeded diagnostics to corroborate conditions they already know to be present.