National Health Care Spending Paper
Irene Harris
HCS 440 – Economics: The Financing of Health Care
BSCS0T2JY4
University of Phoenix Online
Instructor: Geoffrey J. Suszkowski, Ph.D., LFHIMSS
October 25, 2010
Introduction
The subject of healthcare in the United States can be a contentious one, and it is also an area where peoples' perceptions don't always align with the facts given by policymakers. What makes healthcare spending so scandalous is the amount of money the United States pours into healthcare each year. Over $8,000 per-patient per-year costs, amount that has more than double any of the other nation. Yet 15 to 25% of the American population has no healthcare coverage due to a lack of any form of universal
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(Medicare growth under this scenario would be 5.1 percent in 2010.) Private spending in 2010 is projected to grow just 2.8 percent, related to both declining private health insurance enrollment tied to sustained high rates of unemployment and the expiration of Federal subsidies associated with COBRA coverage (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, 2010).
Forecast of Projected National Health Expenditures
Table 1
|National Health Expenditures and Selected Economic Indicators, Levels and Annual Percent Change: Calendar Years 2004-2019 1 Projected |
Item |2004 |2005 |2006 |2007 |2008 |2009 |2010 |2011 |2012 |2013 |2014 |2015 |2016 |2017 |2018 |2019 | |National Health Expenditures (billions) |$1,855 |$1,983 |$2,113 |$2,240 |$2,339 |$2,472 |$2,570 |$2,703 |$2,850 |$3,025 |$3,225 |$3,442 |$3,684 |$3,936 |$4,204 |$4,483 | |National Health Expenditures as a Percent of Gross Domestic Product |15.6% |15.7% |15.8% |15.9% |16.2% |17.3% |17.3% |17.3% |17.2% |17.3% |17.4% |17.7% |18.1% |18.5% |18.9% |19.3% | |National Health Expenditures Per Capita |$6,328 |$6,701 |$7,071 |$7,423 |$7,681 |$8,047 |$8,290 |$8,643 |$9,035 |$9,505 |$10,048 |$10,631 |$11,281 |$11,95 |$12,658 |$13,387 | |Gross Domestic Product (billions) |$11,868 |$12,638 |$13,399 |$14,078 |$14,441 |$14,283 |$14,854 |$15,611 |$16,564
The United States healthcare system has been the topic of much debate lately, with many propositions and reforms introduced to the public to remedy the many complaints made against the current system. The U.S. spend entirely too much money on health care. Based on data released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the "U.S. spent more on health care per capita ($4, 849) and more than 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to health care" (Squires, 2012).
Health care spending in the United States has taken a toll on the federal financial budget (Minott, 2008; Stone & Hoffman, 2010). According to the National Center for Health Statistics, hospitalizations are costly, accounting for approximately 32 percent of total health care cost, additionally the total national health cost in 2014 was at $ 3 trillion (Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2016). Reports generated by the Congressional Budget Office (2010), compared the Medicare spending between the dedicated funding and estimated an increase of $518.5 billion to $929.1 billion between 2010 and 2020 (as cited by Stone & Hoffman, 2010). According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), approximately one in five
The total Medicaid spending grew 7.2 percent in 2010 to $401.4 billion. Federal Medicaid expenditures increased 8.9 percent, while state Medicaid expenditures grew 3.9 percent. This difference in growth was due to approximately $41 billion in enhanced federal aid to states—a result of increased Federal Medical Assistance Percentages mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. (Wikipedia)
Our poor healthcare is not the only characteristic that sets America apart from other industrialized nations; our healthcare system also does. Despite our increasing wealth and presence in the global economy, as a recent Institute of Medicine report clearly states,“the United States is among the few industrialized nations in the world that does not guarantee access to healthcare for its population”. Our healthcare system has left 26% of the population, or 45
2.). Eighty five percent of the total national health spending accounts for personal health care spending, which “increased by 3.9 percent in 2012, 0.4 percentage points faster than in 2011”( (Gnadinger, 2014, para. 3). Faster growth was impacted mostly in hospital, physician and clinical services. To offset this acceleration was a slower growh in spending for perscription drugs and nursing home care. Health care payers spending varied as well in 2012. The medicaid and out of pocket spending grew faster in 2012 than in 2011, but growth in private health insurance and Medicare spending was a little slower. The national health spending is still continuing to grow faster then our economy. It is projected to increase from 18 percent to about 25 percent by 2037. Even with the ACA in effect, “the federal health spending is estimated to increase from 25 percent of total federal spending to about 40 by 2037” (Marcus, 2012, para. 2).
Spending for all privately and publicly funded personal health care services and products (hospital care, physician services,
Health care spending in the United States greatly exceeds the spending of other industrialized countries. Americans spend 3 trillion dollars annually on health care. Health expenditures currently account for 17.6 percent of the Gross National Product (GDP) and are expected to increase at an average rate of 5.8 percent through 2025. Health care spending has exceeded growth of the Gross National Product (GDP) in 42 of the previous 50 years \cite{www-google-transparent}. Health spending threatens the nations fiscal health \cite{springer}. Despite the excessive spending, the United States ranks among the worst on measures of health care quality, health access equity, and quality of life \cite{www-google-McDonald}. Policy makers do not know
There is no doubt that the United States has the highest health care expenses across the globe. Each person in the U.S. spends, on average, approximately $8,508 a year on health care alone. This figure is more than half, and sometimes nearly three times more, than most developed countries around the world, including relatively rich European countries such as France and Sweden. The infant mortality rate in the U.S. is much larger than those compared of other countries, regardless of high health care costs. The most evident pattern within the data is that other countries, on average, have lower incomes, pay less for health care, and are living longer. There are a few explanations for this
In this chart, the chart demonstrate how health care is spend in the United States. In 2010, a total of $2.6 trillion dollars was spend in health care in the United States. Fifty percent of the spending goes to pay the cost of medical services provided by hospitals and physicians. ten percent goes to prescription drugs accounts, while prescription drugs is one of the major parts of the health care spending but this part has been some recent success in slowing the growth in spending. From 2009 to 2010, prescription drug costs grew by just 1.2 percent while hospital and physician costs grew by 4.9 percent. While private health insurance administrative costs sometimes receive a significant amount of political attention, they represent only 3.75
Catlin, A., Cowan, C., & Heffler, S. (2005). National health spending 2005: the slowdown continues. Ebscohost, (),
Total health expenditure in 2015-15 was 170.4 billion compared to 6.0 billion (3.6%) higher than in 2014-15. This is the fourth consecutive year that the growth is health expenditure was below the 10 year average which was estimated
Health care in United stated is well established and advanced and have certain differences than other countries such as china. Data was obtained from organization for economic co-operation and development (OECD), CIA world factbook and World Health Organization (WHO) to compare the differences in healthcare expenditure between the two countries. In 2016, the united states (U.S.) spent 17.8% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care and 90% of U.S. population were insured. Currently, there are 326 million inhabitants in U.S. whom most have insurance but that might change due to Affordable care act policy changes. The U.S. provide high quality of care to patients and improved access
Figure 3. Health Spending Excluding Capital Expenditures as Share of GDP Among OECD Nations, 2013
Heffler, S., Smith, S., Keehan, S., Clemens, M.K., Zezza, M., & Truffer, C. (2004). Health spending projections through 2013. Health Affairs. Retrieved Oct 4, 2014, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/suppl/2004/02/11/hlthaff.w4.79v1.DC1.
Since 1960 The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been gathering information and analyzing multiple healthcare systems that belong or are associated with the organization. There are 34 countries that belong to the organization and multiple other countries that closely collaborate with OECD. The OECD gathers statistics, tracks and compares results across countries to develop better public policies, assess areas of improvement and set standards for every country to follow. According to the statistics, the United States is leading over other countries in areas of research, innovations and technology. However, the spending per capital and also percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare in the US towers over other industrialized countries. “The U.S. spent 16 percent of its GDP on health care. This proportion was nearly double the OECD median (8.7%) and over 40 percent more than the country spending the second-largest share of GDP “(D. Squires, 2011).