Rising Health Care Costs: What you should know

US Citizens 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 may be amazed to learn some of the lesser-known causes of high health care costs.

The phrase health care might conjure up 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 fantastic intentions and a genuine need to help people, but the structure of the U.S. health care system assures profit is the number one issue of importance.

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

Pharmaceutic research and development corporations expend roughly twenty billion dollars every year on Research and development, and about the same sum on advertising and self-promotional merchandising activities.

Additionally, drug companies have as many sales people as there are doctors in the U.S.. One of the responsibilities of these sales teams is to convince doctors to go to their company-sponsored seminars where medicines are showcased.

According to some economic experts, the acquisition of up to date technology is responsible for more than fifty percent of new health care outlay over the previous 3 years.

Much of the money 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 forecast for the future, especially for prescription drugs.

For numerous North Americans who are unable to afford the health care they need, rising costs symbolize an ever-increasing barrier to medical services and products. The fiscal effect is also found on the larger national scale with about 15 percent of gross domestic product going toward health care costs. That is equal to about a fourth of the yearly federal budget.

Comparatively, Canada invests in the area of 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, where there is a public/private delivery system model for health care, manage to serve their citizens for even less whilst still having better longevity than Americans. This proves that the caliber of health care does not increase proportionately with the amount of money spent to achieve 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 rising dramatically, making health care insurance inaccessible for many Americans. Presently, more than forty million Americans do not receive any type of health care benefit.

For employers, providing health care insurance for their workforce 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 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.

Steps to reduce health care costs are always under consideration, though many are not popular options. Suggestions that have been raised 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 proven just as effective as their more expensive brand name counterparts.

End expensive treatment options 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).

Promote preventative care such as smart lifestyle options, correct nutrition and exercise.

Examine 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 substantiate conditions they already know to be present.