Increasing Health Care Costs: What you should know

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

The words health care might invoke 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 wonderful intentions and a true need to serve people, but the structure of the U.S. health care system guarantees profit is the highest issue of importance.

Here are some facts that might help explain the soaring costs of U.S. health care:

Pharmaceutic research and development corporations expend roughly twenty billion dollars each 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 duties of this sales force is to convince doctors to go to pharmaceutical company-sponsored seminars where drugs are showcased.

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

A good deal of the cash United States Citizens pay for health care finds its way into the spiraling profits on health care-related products and services such as the supply of medical insurance. Even higher costs have been forecast for the future, especially for prescription drugs.

For numerous North Americans who are not able to afford the health care they require, spiraling costs symbolise an ever-increasing block to medical services and merchandise. The financial 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 close to a quarter of the annual federal budget.

Relatively, Canada invests in the area of ten 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, in which 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 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 essential in the United States. Unfortunately, costs have been increasing dramatically, making health care insurance inaccessible for many Americans. Presently, more than forty million Americans don't receive any kind of health care benefit.

For employers, offering 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, providing 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.

Measures to trim 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 teaching. 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.

End 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 alternatives, proper 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 forced to cover themselves by ordering unnecessary diagnostics to confirm conditions they already know to be present.