Hospital Care

(What Is, 2012). Every year close to $800 billion dollars is spent on services that were non-essential. (PBS, 2012) That expenditure accounts for roughly 30% of the total healthcare spending that the United States is responsible for. (PBS, 2012) Professionals contribute to this number by participating in defensive medicine, which is recommending and performing tests and procedures that may not be necessary to protect them from lawsuits. (What Is, 2012) By giving in to the fear, these professionals are driving up the cost of healthcare. In 2015, drug spending increased by 9%, a slower but steady increase from the year before. (What Is, 2012) The United States has a substantial problem in the big pharma community. Unlike other countries, our prescription drugs have no price regulations through the government. Instead the drug makers oversee setting a price they view is correct. (Johnson, 2015) Thus, this leads to over priced products that most consumers who need them for everyday life won’t be able to obtain. Additionally, limited competition and small markets also drive up the cost of medication. Without additional generic brands to create a sense of rivalry, name brand drugs create a monopoly and raise prices with no opposition. (Johnson, 2015)

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.

“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.

The cost of healthcare has and will continue to rise in the United States. Some factors that contribute to those hikes are due to the consumer demanding more complex services from health care providers. Things such as new technology, equipment, research and testing procedures, along with pharmacy, and the number of uninsured are all dynamics of the increased cost in health care. The U.S. health care system relies heavily on third-party payers; these payers include commercial insurers and the Federal and state governments. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, the National Health Expenditure grew 3.6% to $2.9 trillion in 2013, or $9,255 per person, and accounted for 17.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Id.

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.Health care costs are far higher in the United States than in any other advanced nation, whether measured in total dollars spent, as a percentage of the economy, or on a per capita basis. And health costs here have been rising significantly faster

The rise of the cost of healthcare has been a hotbutton political issue in the United States in recent years, especially with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. In 1995, the United States spent a little over 13 percent of its GDP on healthcare. By 2013, spending on healthcare had increased to around 17 percent of GDP (World Bank). This trend is projected to continue; healthcare spending will reach some 34 percent of GDP by 2040, with state and federal Medicare and Medicaid spending reaching 15 percent of GDP (Council of Economic Advisors). For comparison, the entire US federal government spent only 20.7 percent of GDP in 2015 (Office of Management and Budget 163) What is driving this

In 1998, the United States devoted 13% of its economy to health care, and this figure rose to 16% by 2008. However, despite this rise in government expenditure on health care, outcomes for patients remained the same (Obama, 2016). The quality of the health care system in general was not great; health care

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.

In the United States the rates of medical costs are skyrocketing. Even, though this is a wide span issue across many nations. Health care costs are the highest within the U.S. This issue is based upon life expectancy and infant mortality which help to produce the average rates across the board in our country. We as Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, but we are still below the average of other major industrial countries. the performance of the United States health care system as compared to 191 other countries was ranked 37th. This is according to the World Health Organization’s 2000 report on the

The rise in costs of prescription medicines affects all sectors of the health care industry, including private insurers, public programs, and patients. Spending on prescription drugs continues to be an important health care concern, particularly in light of rising pharmaceutical costs, the aging population, and increased use of costly specialty drugs. In recent history, increases in prescription drug costs have outpaced other categories of health care spending, rising rapidly throughout the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s. (Kaiseredu.org, 2012).

Controlling insurance costs are a significant political topic in America. The uninsured in America totals forty five million, causing it to remain a high social concern (Shi & Singh, 2013, p. 338). Many of the insured seek care at hospitals, often leading to bad debt write offs. These loses get factored into paying consumers’ costs. It is estimated that insured consumers pay an extra one thousand dollars in premium cost each year to offset losses from seeing uninsured patients (DeMoss, 2015). If the health care system fails to control costs, it could destroy the infrastructure of the healthcare system (PBS, 2009). In 2010, America spent 17.9% of the GDP on healthcare expenses. Health insurance premiums have increased 3%-13% since 2000 (DeMoss, 2015).

The healthcare industry in America spend $1.878 trillion in health care, comprising 16% of the gross domestic product and amount to $6,280 per capita thereby out pricing the GDP due to the rapid development of medical technology resulting in treatment of disease, rising expectation about value of health care services, government financing, growth of elderly population and lack of competitive market (Williams & Torrens, 2008). Furthermore in 2004, Medicare/Medicaid contributed to 56% of hospital reimbursement and 59% of Medicaid funding is contributed from by the federal general treasury with the states averaging 41% of the contribution resulting in $309 billion in Medicare health services while Medicaid spent $213.5 billion in 2002 (Williams

Steven Brill feels that American health care is eating away at our economy and our treasury and discusses the costs associated with the provision of health care services in the U.S.. The article explores the medical world through the medical expenses incurred by a 64-year-old Janice S., Sean Recchi, A 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio and several other egregiously billed patients. The article poses the question: why exactly are the medical bills so high; in particular hospital bills?

Problem Statement: - US health care costs currently exceed 17% of GDP and continue to rise. Other countries spend less of their GDP on health care but have the same increasing trend. Explanations are not hard to find. The aging of populations and the development of new treatments are behind some of the increase. Perverse incentives also contribute: Third-party payors (insurance companies and governments) reimburse for procedures performed rather than outcomes achieved, and patients bear little responsibility for the cost of the health care services they demand. But few acknowledge a more fundamental source of escalating costs: the system by which those costs are measured. To put it bluntly, there is an almost complete lack of understanding of how much it costs to deliver patient care, much less how those costs compare with the outcomes achieved. Instead of focusing on the costs of treating individual patients with specific medical conditions over their full cycle of care, providers aggregate and analyze costs at the

The healthcare system plays a key role in the economic stability of our country, as every year trillions are spent in attempt to combat disease and health issues that plaque humanity. As it makes up a significant amount of the expenditures in the economy, so the costs associated with health care of those in pain from illness and injury, including lost productivity, increased need of assistance in living and also the cost of death in some cases, is important to the economic stability and over all standard of living in our country. The key to economic prosperity is balancing the need for care with the costs of illness to keep as many people healthy and well without breaking the bank of collective society. The costs of healthcare have been increasingly problematic in recent years with so many issues surrounding the current system. With the “total health care spending in the United States expected to reach $4.8 trillion in 2021, up from $2.6 trillion in 2010 and $75 billion in 1970, meaning that health care spending will account for nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or one-fifth of the U.S. economy, by 2021” (Aetna). With this in mind it is apparent that as we look at the trillion-dollar industry of the medical community it seems that it needs to be a major focus of our nation as a whole and with the many issues come many creative solutions. First let us analyze the reasons behind the current cost and the major problems facing this industry and than discus what