Spiraling Health Care Costs: What you have to know

North Americans pay more than 1.5 trillion dollars for medical care every year and costs related to all manner of health care, such as prescription drugs, continue to accelerate. While some of the reasons behind this booming bill are understandable, US Citizens caught in a cash crunch might be amazed to hear some of the lesser-known causes of high health care costs.

The words health care could conjure up 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 wonderful intentions and a genuine desire to aid people, but the structure of the American health care system ensures profit is the number one issue of importance.

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

Pharmaceutical research and development corporations spend about $20 billion every year on Research and development, and roughly the same amount on advertising and self-promotional marketing activities.

Also, drug companies have as many sales people as there are doctors in the United States. One of the duties of these sales teams is to convince doctors to attend 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 three years.

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

For many US Citizens who are not able to afford the health care they require, increasing costs represent an ever-increasing impedance to medical services and products. The financial effect is also felt on the greater national scale with about fifteen percent of gross domestic product going toward health care costs. That is equal to about a quarter of the yearly federal budget.

Relatively, Canada invests about ten percent of its GDP on its public health care program. Unlike the United States, 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 quality of health care does not increase proportionally with the amount of money spent to attain 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 spiraling dramatically, making health care insurance unreachable for many Americans. Currently, more than forty million Americans don't receive any variety 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 stay static, offering 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 shrink health care costs are always under consideration, though many are not popular choices. Suggestions that have been put forward by various sources have included:

Increased 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.

Stop expensive treatment alternatives will only add a small 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 choices, proper 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 coerced to cover themselves by ordering unnecessary diagnostics to corroborate conditions they already know to be present.