Spiraling 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 manner 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, United States Citizens caught in a cash crunch might be surprised to discover 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 ruthless one at that. Individual practitioners, researchers and participants may have marvellous aims and a genuine need to serve people, but the structure of the US health care system assures profit is the highest issue of importance.

Here is some information that might help explain the high costs of American health care:

Pharmaceutic research and development corporations spend roughly twenty billion dollars each year on Research and development, and roughly the same amount on advertising and self-promotional marketing activities.

Also, 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 attend pharmaceutical company-sponsored seminars where medicines are showcased.

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

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

For many US Citizens who are not able to afford the health care they need, increasing prices symbolise an ever-increasing block to medical services and products. The financial burden is also found on the larger national scale with about 15 percent of gross domestic product going towards health care costs. That is equal to close to one fourth of the yearly federal budget.

Relatively, Canada invests around ten percent of its Gross domestic product on its public health care program. Unlike the U.S.A., 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 populations for even less whilst still having greater longevity than US Citizens. This proves that the quality of health care does not increase proportionately with the amount of money spent to attain it.

While many Canadians supplement their universal 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 of a necessity in the United States. Unfortunately, costs have been increasing dramatically, making health care insurance inaccessible for many Americans. Currently, more than forty million Americans don't receive any variety of health care benefit.

For employers, providing 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, offering health care insurance to workers 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.

Steps to shrink health care costs are always under consideration, though many are not popular options. 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.

Terminate expensive treatment choices 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, proper nutrition and exercise.

Analyze ways to control drug advertising to consumers. There is speculation 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 unnecessary tests to substantiate conditions they already know to be present.