Healthcare Costs
Healthcare Issues
The healthcare industry is in turmoil. Ironically, there are many sides and perspectives to the argument because healthcare in this country is and always was a major part of all aspects of life. We cannot just say 'let's fix the doctors' and all the problems go away. Every single man, woman and child as well as every single private and business decision in one way or another is affected by the existing healthcare cost situation. Most people do not consider that even the price of milk in their grocer's store or the overall cost of their automobile has in some way been affected by the crisis in healthcare. Consider a simple business decision like hiring a new employee in any business sector. This relatively mandatory decision comes with all types of hidden healthcare related concerns. In the private sector, consider a family member deciding to go to college. Health insurance has become a mandatory necessity of our educational system so every student has to be covered by some type of insurance -- whether it is mom's or if the school pays for that coverage, obviously the overall cost of that education has been altered. Who really thinks about these things in those ways? In the same sense, healthcare costs and reforms from a medical and healthcare industry perspective is also directly affected by healthcare costs. The industry is at a critical level in regard to recruiting and maintaining adequate staffing of nurses, doctors and even janitors not to mention the bureaucratic process for billing. Healthcare reform is at the heart of all these hiring decisions because the nurse's salary has to be taken care of by somebody. Our Medicare trust fund is almost completely broke at a time when our nation's population continues to grow older and is in need of even more medical attention. So do people over 65 have to get there medicines from Canada because the United States' pharmaceutical companies continue to lobby Congress for less reform and increased pricing on their multi-colored pills? These concerns and millions of others are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discussing healthcare reform. Fox News says that President Obama is a socialist at heart because he has the nerve...
At present, we spend nearly 15% of GDP, or $7,000 per man, woman and child in the United States on healthcare. The next highest nations, Germany and France, spend only about 10% of their GDP on healthcare. The additional 50% we spend does not reward us in longer lives or a better quality of life. Those in the healthcare community would argue that Americans receive the best healthcare in the
Health Care Costs and Health Care Quality The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, dedicated to improving the health and health care of Americans, focuses on research, publication and funding. Two of its articles, "What is the National Quality Strategy?" And "What's the price of health care?" focus on several important issues of national health care. By simplifying the explanation of our National Quality Strategy and examining several states' attempts at health care
As the increased costs that they are paying, will more than likely mean that they cannot afford to receive routine physicals and checkups. When you begin to reduce the number of visits, the odds increase that various conditions and ailments may be discovered once it is too late. This is when the condition has become so bad, that it will require an individual have to visit a specialist. Once
Health Care Cost for Average Families Is Increasing Health care costs are increasing at their lowest rate in 20 years, according to recent studies (AON, 2015), but at 4.1%, these costs are still increasing faster than the rate of inflation (Patton, 2015). For the average American family, the reality that health care cost increases have been sustained over two decades, at rates faster than either wage increases or the inflation rate,
"Studies of the relationship between managed care penetration in the health care market and expenditures for Medicare fee-for-service enrollees have demonstrated the existence of these types of spill over effects" (Bundorf et al., 2004). Managed care organizations generate these types of spillover effects by increasing competition in the health care market, altering the arrangement of the health care delivery system, and altering physician practice patterns. Studies have found that higher
This is being done by disseminating and using practice guidelines for various medical conditions and by profiling individual physicians' provision rates. Demand side cost sharing is where patients must contribute more to their healthcare by paying more in copayments and deductibles. One recent advance in health care financing is the health savings account (HSA). These plans rely heavily on patient cost-sharing. An HSA basically provides health insurance along with a
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now