Rising Health Care Costs: What you have to know

United States Citizens pay more than 1.5 trillion dollars for medical care each year and costs related to all types of health care, such as prescription drugs, continue to increase at an enormous rate. While a few of the reasons behind this booming bill are comprehensible, US Citizens caught in a cash crunch may be amazed to discover a few of the lesser-known causes of escalating 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 remorseless one at that. Individual practitioners, researchers and participants may have marvelous intentions and a genuine desire to serve people, but the structure of the American health care system guarantees profit is the first issue of importance.

Here is some information that may help explain the soaring costs of US health care:

Pharmaceutical research and development corporations expend approximately twenty billion dollars each year on Research and development, and roughly the same sum on advertising and self-promotional marketing activities.

Additionally, 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 go to pharmaceutical company-sponsored seminars where drugs are showcased.

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

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

For numerous United States Citizens who are unable to afford the health care they need, rising costs symbolize an ever-increasing barrier to medical services and merchandise. The financial burden 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 about one quarter of the yearly federal budget.

Relatively, Canada invests in the area of 10 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, where there is a public/private delivery system model for health care, manage to serve their populate for even less while still having better 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 added 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 rising dramatically, making health care insurance unreachable for many Americans. Presently, more than 40 million Americans don't receive any kind of health care benefit.

For employers, offering health care insurance for employees 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 unchanging, 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 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:

Extra drug awareness and education. 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 options will only add a short amount 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, correct nutrition and exercise.

Examine ways to control drug advertising to consumers. There is supposition 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 unneeded diagnostics to substantiate conditions they already know to be present.