Rising Health Care Costs: What you need to know

US Citizens pay more than one and a half trillion dollars for medical care every year and costs associated with all manner of health care, such as prescription medicines, continue to rocket. While a few of the reasons behind this booming bill are comprehensible, North Americans caught in a cash crunch may be amazed to find out some of the lesser-known causes of escalating 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 pitiless one at that. Individual practitioners, researchers and participants may have tremendous intentions and a true desire to help people, but the structure of the US health care system guarantees profit is the number one issue of importance.

Here are some facts that could assist in explaining the escalating costs of U.S. health care:

Pharmaceutic research and development companies spend roughly twenty billion dollars each year on R&D, and around a similar sum on advertising and self-promotional merchandising activities.

Also, drug companies have as many sales people as there are doctors in america. One of the responsibilities of this sales force 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 outlay over the previous 3 years.

A good deal of the cash North Americans pay for health care finds its way into the rising profits on health care-related merchandise and services such as the supply of medical insurance. Even higher costs have been envisaged for the future, especially for prescription drugs.

For many Americans who are not able to afford the health care they need, increasing prices symbolize an ever-increasing impedance to medical services and products. The financial effect is also experienced on the larger national scale with about 15 percent of gross domestic product going toward health care costs. That is equal to approximately one quarter 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., 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 populations for even less whilst still having greater longevity than North Americans. This proves that the caliber 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 essential in the United States. Unfortunately, costs have been rising dramatically, making health care insurance out of reach for many Americans. Presently, more than 40 million Americans don't receive any type of health care benefit.

For employers, providing 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 remain unchanging, providing 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 cut 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 training. 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.

Terminate expensive treatment alternatives 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).

Encourage preventative care such as smart lifestyle alternatives, 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 forced to cover themselves by ordering unnecessary diagnostics to corroborate conditions they already know to be present.