National Healthcare Spending

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss the current level of national healthcare expenditures and to determine if we as Americans are spending too much on healthcare. The author of this paper will provide examples and solutions where we as a nation should add or cut from the healthcare expenditures. This paper will also detail how the general public's healthcare needs are being paid for, the biggest economic healthcare challenge, why the challenge should be addressed, and how this challenge to be financed.

According the Department of Health and Human Services, total health care spending in the U.S. reached $2.3 trillion in 2008, or $7,681 per person. As a share of GDP, healthcare expenditures set a new record of 16.2 percent. That’s double the 8.1 percent share of GDP in 1975, and it is triple the 5.2 percent share of GDP in 1960. (Perry, 2010) Last year in 2012, total U.S. health care spending hit $2.807 trillion, or $8,948 per person. (Geisel, 2013) Its rate of increase has been relatively low since 2009, at

One of the issues that is widely discussed and debated concerning the United States economy is the healthcare system. Unlike in the majority of developed and developing countries, the healthcare system in the United States is not public, meaning that the state does not provide free or cheap healthcare services. This paper addresses many of the factors contributing to the rising cost of healthcare.

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.

When talking about the United States healthcare system, it seems any conversation centers around cost. Whether it is corporations or employers talking about rising healthcare premiums that are out of control, to American families discussing getting less coverage for the amount of the premium they pay, or the soon to be retired person who wonders how they will make it with the high cost of Medicare premiums and prescription drugs. The challenge continues to be delivering world class healthcare at an affordable cost to all stakeholders. The cost of healthcare continues to impact the dominating delivery system of Managed Care here in the United States.

“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.

More than one-sixth of the U.S. economy is devoted to health care spending and that percentage continues to rise every year. Regrettably, our system is not delivering value commensurate with, for example an estimated $2.5 trillion in 2009 spend on health care.1 These costs punish us on multiple fronts. For American families, the soaring cost of medical

The primary focus of this article was to inform its readers of the multiple aspects of the health care system in the United States as a whole. Within this article, the subjects of health care that are reviewed are a) the US government’s position as the insurer for roughly 60 percent of the healthcare spending in the US via the public sector, b) the analysis of the funding for government health care programs such as Medicare, Medicall, and Medicaid and c) the programs in place for the health care of children and program administration for war veterans. The author discusses health care policy being at the forefront of world economics and modern medical science as it sets in motion governing policies and procedure associated with the financial funding and pharmaceutical appropriation of health care insurance.

It is no secret that the US healthcare has many issues in its system. Especially, when you compare it to other countries like: Great Britain, Japan, France, Canada etc. According to Sultz and Young states that “The United States ranks eighth behind all of these nations in life expectancy at birth, highest in infant mortality rate, and highest in the probability of people dying between the age of 15 and 60 years.” The US healthcare system has many issues like a large number of uninsured According to Sara R. Collins, Munira Gunja and Sophie Beutel in the 2014 census 33 million people were uninsured. Other issues are medical professional shortage, medical error or infection, people using apps to diagnose themselves, and rising cost of care. The main focus in these paper will be the rising of cost. The cost of current health care explains for most of the issues that is happening in this country.

Health care spending has grown rapidly over the past four decades, more than any other sector of the economy. Increases in the cost of health care in the United States is evidenced by per capita expenditures and by measuring health care expenditures in relationship to the Gross Domestic Product (Conklin, 2002). The rapid growth in expenditures is caused by a variety of factors. Initially, growth in the United States

My position on national health care spending is way too much monies is going out and not enough people supporting the problem. A universal health care plan for every man, woman, and child who resides in the United States is the most economical way to achieve this goal. All working citizens must have monies automatically taken out of their paychecks and if you can afford more than the basic plan, then there will be plans available that you can upgrade to like Aflac. No matter how poor or how rich you are, everyone has the basic plan and everyone contributes to that plan. In this paper we will discuss the current level of national health care expenditures, the level of spending, where the nation should cut, and how the

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

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

Health spending in Canada rose from $74 billion dollars per year in 1995 to about $222 bil- lion in 2015. Several factors drive health care spending. These include population growth, aging population, the increase in prices of health care related goods and services on top of economy-wide inflation. Increased demand for health care because of higher per capita income (income effect) and the greater rate of health care utilization due to deteriorating health and better access (supply) also affect health care expenditure. The introduction of new technologies in health care system (usually more efficient and technologically advanced method of treatment) increase cost. Finally, change in productivity in health care sector which can potentially

As of 2011, most of the U.S health care spending went to “hospital care at 32%, physician and clinical services at 20%, nursing home and home health care at 8%, Dental services at 4%, Other professional and personal health-care services at 3%, Government public health activities at 3%, Net cost of health insurance at 6%, Other medical products at 3%, Government administration at 1%, and Investment at 6%”; all these are the services that the U.S health care expenditure funds (Rice et al., 2013). Hospital care, Physician and clinical services, Nursing care facilities & continuing care retirement communities, and Drug