Why Is Health Care So Expensive?

The United States spends roughly three trillion dollars on healthcare each year. This is close to double the amount of other developed countries. Still, however with double the amount of funds being spent on health care in the U.S. health system is ranked thirty-seventh by the World Health Organization. It was also ranked last among the 11 industrialized countries by the Commonwealth Fund in overall healthcare. With the United States paying the most for healthcare why is it not ranked top among healthcare system? Harvard’s David Cutler says one of the main reasons the American healthcare system costs so much is because of administrative costs. Administrative costs account for about 10-15 percent of all healthcare costs. The Duke University

Hospitals around the country advertise all the new fancy technology they offer so they can lure patients away from competitors. These “breakthrough” treatments often have no greater success rate than the older procedure. The article, “Why Is Health Care so Expensive?” by Consumer Reports talks about how the use of robotic surgery for prostate cancer surgery has gone from 6 percent in 2001 to nearly 83 percent in 2014. This increase has occurred all while little evidence confirms it is better than the earlier procedure although it comes with a higher price

The Swedish government disincentives sending patients to specialists. This is they don’t offer higher premiums for specialists services for illnesses that could be treated by general physicians. Greatly reducing the number of patients going to specialists who don’t need to. The UK focuses its efforts less on the treatment and more on preventative measures. These services are paid for through their public insurance program similar to Medicare. This program pays for its policyholder's medical expenses through the income taxes the government collects. If the United States government adopts policies similar to its fellow countries we will move up to the top of the healthcare ladder. We already have the best healthcare in the world, we just need to bring the cost down to an affordable price. By implementing an agency that acts like a private business meant to stay in budget and make services cheaper if said service rises above budget. Push for generic prescriptions where appropriate and disincentives the unneeded use of a specialist. Finally, the program would make decisions always in the public’s best