Increasing Health Care Costs: What you should know

United States Citizens pay more than one and a half trillion dollars for medical care each year and costs associated with all types of health care, such as prescription drugs, continue to accelerate. While a few of the reasons behind this booming bill are understandable, Americans caught in a cash crunch might be surprised to find out a few of the lesser-known reasons for escalating health care costs.

The words health care can 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 tremendous aims and a true desire to aid people, but the structure of the U.S. health care system guarantees profit is the number one issue of importance.

Here is some information that could assist in explaining the soaring costs of U.S. health care:

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

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

According to some economic experts, 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 hard cash US Citizens 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 forseen for the future, particularly for prescription drugs.

For many North Americans who are unable to afford the health care they require, increasing costs represent an ever-increasing block to medical services and products. The fiscal effect is also found on the greater national scale with about 15 percent of gross domestic product going towards health care costs. That is equal to approximately a fourth of the yearly federal budget.

Comparatively, Canada invests in the area of 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, in which there is a public/private delivery system model for health care, manage to serve their citizens for even less whilst still having greater 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 benefits 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 unreachable for many Americans. Currently, more than 40 million Americans do not receive any variety of health care benefit.

For employers, providing health care insurance for their workforce 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 unchanging, offering health care insurance to their workforce 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.

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

Increased drug awareness and education. 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.

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

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

Examine 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 coerced to cover themselves by ordering unneeded tests to corroborate conditions they already know to be present.