Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel. There are three issues when it comes to the health care cost rising. The first is the rising cost in prescription drugs. The second area of rising cost is the increased technologies when it comes to the medical industry. The third problem …show more content…
More and more people with medical insurance are relying on the health care system as new technologies and treatments become available. This leads to a grater number of claims for payment by insurance companies, the costs of which are passed back to health care consumers. The baby-boom generation is entering its peak health-care using period. Over eighty million Americans will turn 50 in the next 10 years. The cost of providing heath care for these individuals will be staggering The impact this rise is going to have on heath care as well as heath insurance is very dramatic. Most health insurers, private sector employers and consumers can expect increases in insurance premiums. This includes both traditional types of insurance and managed care programs, or HMOs. Some health insurance plans may also reduce benefits to keep their plans affordable. This may include increasing cost-sharing responsibility of members and the amount members pay out of pocket for certain services, such as prescription drugs. The real question is not what is causing the increase but what is being done to prevent further increases. Bush has planned to add $77 billion to his budget to provide prescription drugs to about 3 million low-income senior citizens over the next 10 years. In January, Bush also unveiled his proposal to give states a 90 percent mat for drug coverage for the nation’s poorest Medicare recipients. Senior citizens with annual income between $8,500 and
One cause of the rising cost of healthcare is America is due to people not utilizing preventive health care. Preventive healthcare is important, because it typically can stop an illness from occurring. One reason why people are not using preventative health care, is because
As we advance in our healthcare system and continue to find cure for the deadly diseases we are also faced with prescription drug prices rising much faster than they were a few years back. Drug prices are increasing at an unmaintainable rate without any sign of reduction. People who are heavily affected by this rise are mostly elderly citizens and also the poor of this country because they can barely afford these expenses. These people either have no money to pay for their copays or no health insurances at all.
as defensive medicine practice, new technology, malpractice lawsuit and the uninsured. New technology is the biggest factor of the rising cost of healthcare to treated patient of their illness. New technologies have seemed to be the driving force of high healthcare cost in America. The technology accounts for 38 to 65 percent of healthcare spending in America (Johnson, 2011). The annual spending of health care increased from 75 billion in 1970 to 2.0 trillion in 2005 and is estimated to reach 4.0 trillion in 2015 (Kaiser Foundation, 2013). U.S. citizens spent 5,267 per capita for health care in 2002- 53 percent more than any other country” (2005). “America spent 5267 per capita and in Switzerland they spent 3074 per capita” about 1821 cheaper than ours (Starfield, B 2010). Controlling the technology isn’t easy thing to do because of technology prices are set by manufacturing and the installer of the new medical equipment’s. However, there other way
There are many elements affecting increases in health care costs. The proportion of old people in the US population increases and aging population can raise health care expenditures. Because, compared to younger people, older people use more health care services as they are more likely to have non-communicable diseases. Non-communicable
Health care spending in the United States of America as a percentage of the economy has reached astonishing heights, equating to 17.7 percent. This number is shocking when compared to other counties; in Australia health care is 8.9 percent, in United Kingdom 9.4 percent, in Canada 11.2 percent. If the American health care system were to hypothetically become its own economy, it would be the fifth-largest in the world. While these statistics sound troubling, they lead us to look for answers about the problems surrounding our system. The first health insurance company was created in the 1930s to give all American families an equal opportunity for hospital care and eventually led to a nationwide economic and social controversy that erupted in the 1990s and continued to be shaped by the government, insurance companies, doctors, and American citizens. In this paper, I will go in to detail about the various opinions regarding the controversy, the history behind health insurance companies, and the main dilemmas brought out by the health care crisis. Greedy insurance companies combined with high costs of doctor visits and pharmaceutical drugs or the inefficient hospitals all over America can only describe the beginning to this in depth crisis. Recently, the United States health care industry has become know for the outrageous costs of insurance models, developments of various social and health services programs, and the frequent changes in medicinal technology.
Costs have escalated for a host of reasons. Americans’ health needs increased as their for example. Coverage grew to include catastrophic illnesses, not just common ailments. Ma added retiree health benefits. Medical techniques and technology became more sophisticate prescription drugs acquired an expanding role in disease management and illness preventio medical inflation had become a serious business issue; by some yardsticks, costs rose at a f decade than in the 1990s.
When contemplating health care policy changes, several economic issues in health care must be considered. These include the financial issues affecting the health sector and have an impact on health policies. Policy makers face unending challenges due to the health sector revenues that are always rising. Another challenge is decreased funding and failure of the health insurance services.
Impact to Healthcare organizations - These increases in cost raise questions of health care expenses at the hospital level. As higher profits are sought, the cost will become unstable for all, thus causing many to postpone going to the doctor. However, there are many complicated problems associated with our healthcare system. We will focus on main issues that can correct many related problems within the current structure. More importantly, we need to find ways to ensure all Americans have access to health care; and we need to hone in on how we can get the best value for the $2 trillion dollars we spend annually on healthcare.
“The amount people pay for health insurance increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while income for the same period of time only increased 3 percent.” (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The rising cost of healthcare is a huge problem in America today. In this paper I will analyze the different issues and causes for the increase in cost.
One of this health care’s programs objective is to limit the number of uninsured (Shi & Singh, 2015). This controversial healthcare plan incorporates a privately funded insurance which is paid for through employment and solely by the patient and a publicly funded insurance by the government. Medicare is provided for senior citizens 65 and older, and Medicaid is provided for low income citizens. The federal government and state government both partake in the funding of Medicaid. Although insurance is provided to the low income through Medicaid, the United States continues to suffer from cost escalation spending 17.1 percent of GDP on healthcare in 2013, a 50 percent more than the second nation (Commonwealth, n.d.) The high cost and limited coverage continues to spark up the conversation for a
Healthcare spending growth rate trends show astounding estimates. Since 1960, spending has risen from $27 billion ($143 per capita, 5.1% pf GDP) to amazing $1,678.9 billion ($5,670 per capita, 15.3% of GDP, 2003 data) (HHS, 2005). Recent research estimated that by 2013, healthcare spending will be as high as 18.4% of the Growth Domestic Product. It is important to note that the gradual move from hospital to ambulatory setting has resulted in much higher spending on outpatient hospital services and prescription drugs. The spending growth for these two trends is much higher than the overall healthcare cost growth, which, in fact, increases faster than such important economic indicators as GDP growth, inflation growth, and population growth rates.
American people look at their insurance bills, co-pays and drug costs, and can't understand why they continue to increase. The insured should consider all of these reasons before getting upset. In 2004, employee health care premiums increased over 11 percent, four times more than the rate of inflation.
America is without a question the leading country of medical and scientific advances. There always seem to be a new medical breakthrough every time you watch the news or read the paper, especially in the cure of certain diseases. However, the medical research requires an enormous amount of money. The U.S. spends the most money on health care yet many people, mainly the working class Americans are still without any type of health insurance and thus are more susceptible to health risks and problems. The concept of health insurance for Americans was formulated over a century ago. Most Americans obtain health insurance from
Anyone can now buy insurance even with pre-existing conditions. Now a consumer can walk into a health care facility and be treated like a regular insured consumer. This is an example of how the demand for health care services will increase. Consumers who are used to getting care promptly will find themselves crowded out by the newly insured. Waiting times will increase due to the fact that no one will be denied care. Despite the best efforts of medical professionals to increase the workforce, shortages are expected in every health care profession. The supply of professional health care workers will fail to meet the demand of medical services to the newly insured. With the increase use of physician assistants and nurse practitioner, this will change day to day practices, allowing physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices.
Finally, advances in technology also impacts rising health care cost. Increased health care spending improves increases access to new technologies, providing both new options of treatment, improvement in quality of service provided and treatment for a greater number of