Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Escalating costs of healthcare
Conclusion of increasing healthcare costs
Escalating costs of healthcare
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Escalating costs of healthcare
ABSTRACT Technology affects society in every aspect in today’s world. There is not one single industry that has not been affected by technology, but no other industry is more affected than the field of medicine and healthcare. Modern technology has changed the structure and organization of the medical field. With rising health care cost the amount of uninsured people keeps rising higher and higher. With new technology the prices will only continue to rise. There are currently approximately 46 million people without health care coverage and that number continues to climb with rising health care cost. Employers are either no longer able to pay for employee insurance because of the 54 percent cost increase, or they are having to change policies …show more content…
This will cause Medicare to go bankrupt in the near future. There are only two main approaches that can be taken to slow the health care cost growth. We can reduce spending on high-cost medical care that produces little to no benefits to the patient, or we can reduce spending on the high cost care that produces some benefits, but at an even greater increase in cost. Either of these solutions would cause some rationing and very important but difficult decision making to …show more content…
This means they do not require many medicines and do not require and specialist as in respiratory, orthopedic, or physical therapist. We could also reduce the spending on expensive procedures that produce some benefits but at an even greater cost. Such as certain cancer, depending on the survival rate and the stage it is in. The treatment is expensive, and you will also need medications and eventually will come down with more medical diagnosis that also need treatment. Some need oxygen for shortness of breath, some may need a feeding tube, and some may even need amputations or surgeries. Is it really worth treating one thing only to cause several more to go wrong and cost more? Is it worth the pain? This is a hard decision for many, but is it worth the extra few days or month you may get considering you may not even remember the extra time or just the pain? All in all, the cost of health care will continue to rise, and there really isn’t any stopping it. As technology grows and as scientist continue to find cures for diseases, and as more diseases are discovered the price will continue to soar. Although I outlined two possible containments there are many others, but with these choices comes
The answers to the questions are fairly obvious, but in fact this is exactly what the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 did to hospitals across the country. By substantially lowering the payments for Medicare patients, the government forced many hospitals and out of business and managed-care companies to stop caring for Medicare patients.
Hence, the citizens must pay a large amount of money to get treatment, and this also makes it difficult for them to find specialists
For the last five years of my life I have worked in the healthcare industry. One of the biggest issues plaguing our nation today has been the ever rising cost of health care. If we don't get costs under control, we risk losing the entire system, as well as potentially crippling our economy. For the sake of our future, we must find a way to lower the cost of health care in this nation.
...ions are ageing and increasingly, people are living with one or more chronic conditions for decades (World Health Organization, 2011). If the government can assist in regulating preventive health measure for citizens it will years down the line prove to be a cost effective measure. World Health Organization (2011) states that many chronic conditions were avoidable had the person ben able to receive the preventive education and care needed. Business owners may experience a slight inflation in cost to insure their employees but it does not amount to nearly half as much that will be saved by all citizens having access to preventive medical care.
In order to make ones’ health care coverage more affordable, the nation needs to address the continually increasing medical care costs. Approximately more than one-sixth of the United States economy is devoted to health care spending, such as: soaring prices for medical services, costly prescription drugs, newly advanced medical technology, and even unhealthy lifestyles. Our system is spending approximately $2.7 trillion annually on health care. According to experts, it is estimated that approximately 20%-30% of that spending (approx. $800 billion a year) appears to go towards wasteful, redundant, or even inefficient care.
The United States health care system is one of the most expensive systems in the world yet it is known as being unorganized and chaotic in comparison to other countries (Barton, 2010). This factor is attributed to numerous characteristics that define what the U.S. system is comprised of. Two of the major indications are imperfect market conditions and the demand for new technology (Barton, 2010). The health care system has been described as a free market in
generations to become healthier, and it could be more affordable, it will be cheaper to cure a
The next driver of importance for world health is technology. The implementation of innovative medicine is a primary interest for the U.S., Japan, and Germany (Reid, 2008). Unlike these other countries, the United States has a greater commitment to technology than it does to health care expenditures (Barton, 2010). This regard has led to changes in clinical practices and the level of knowledge of consumers (Drivers of change). Patients gather information pertaining to disease or illnesses from reliable m...
The two major components of Medicare, the Hospital Insurance Program (Part A of Medicare) and the supplementary Medical Insurance program (Part B) may be exhausted by the year 2025, another sad fact of the Medicare situation at hand (“Medicare’s Future”). The burden brought about by the unfair dealings of HMO’s is having an adverse affect on the Medicare system. With the incredibly large burden brought about by the large amount of patients that Medicare is handed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fund the system in the way that is necessary for it to function effectively. Most elderly people over the age of 65 are eligible for Medicare, but for a quite disturbing reason they are not able to reap the benefits of the taxes they have paid. Medicare is a national health plan covering 40 mi...
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. In 2003, premiums rose 10.1 percent and in 2002 they rose 15 percent. Employee spending for coverage increased 126 percent between 2000 and 2004. Those increases were lower than expected. (National Coalition on Health Care, 2005, Facts on health care costs). Premiums have risen five times faster than workers wages, on average. If medical spending continues to rise by just two percent more than personal income, by 2040 Medicare and Medicaid would hit 18.5 percent of the gross domestic product, leading the federal deficit to be 20.7 of the gross domestic product. (Melcer, R., 2004, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Rising Costs of healthcare pose huge challenges).
Advances in technology have influences our society at home, work and in our health care. It all started with online banking, atm cards, and availability of children’s grades online, and buying tickets for social outings. There was nothing electronic about going the doctor’s office. Health care cost has been rising and medical errors resulting in loss of life cried for change. As technologies advanced, the process to reduce medical errors and protect important health care information was evolving. In January 2004, President Bush announced in the State of the Union address the plan to launch an electronic health record (EHR) within the next ten years (American Healthtech, 2012).
According to Harry A. Sultz and Kristina M. Young, the authors of our textbook Health Care USA, medical care in the United States is a $2.5 Trillion industry (xvii). This industry is so large that “the U.S. health care system is the world’s eighth
There are many challenges when it comes to our health care system that define the future strategic direction. The one chosen for this paper are reform and legislation, information technology advancements such as the electronic medical record (EMR)/ electronic health record (EHR), access to health care including the uninsured and those in the poverty levels, maintaining a skilled workforce and Pay for performance. These challenges pose threats to our health care system planning for the future.
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.
Roughly 2.8 trillion dollars is spent currently on health care in the United States (Kliff, 2014). In 2013, the United States spent almost 50 percent more than the next highest health care spender, France (The Commonwealth Fund, 2016). Many experts agree health care costs consumes a significant portion of economic output as well as increased premium costs. Several factors are contributing to cost escalation such as defensive medicine, increase in the elderly population, and growth of technology (Shi & Singh, 2016). The United States is considered to have mostly a private health care system, however it spends more money on the public health care system than countries with a completely public health care system. Government funded programs, such as Medicare, play a considerable roll in health care expenditures. It is projected that Medicare expenditures will rise to 9 percent of the GDP by the year 2050 (Shi & Singh, 2016). Further concern arises with drug costs in the United